Preference remains for printed texts

AS THE Ministry of Education continues its thrust for students to access and utilise e-textbooks, at least three Corporate Area school principals are concerned that their students are not adapting to this new modality.

Patrick Williams, principal of Donald Quarrie High School in east Kingston, said his students are more comfortable using regular printed texts.

“Because they require more one-on-one material, sometimes it is best to really have more printed materials,” he said.

“The students that we get, they are more beginning or they are developing. The ebook, while it has its purpose, it is not fitting in all cases. Sometimes the printed material works best,” he explained.

Additionally, he said that although some students on the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) are given devices by the ministry, most of the school’s student population of almost 1,000 are not part of the programme.

“Not all students who were on PATH got tablets, and then there are students who are not on the PATH programme that are worse off and do not have access to devices,” he told The Gleaner.

A similar concern was shared by the principal of Denham Town High School, Donovan Hunter.

“Our students do best when the material is opened up and then you have to take them through it. It’s best to actually do a sort of hand-holding when we are doing our pedagogical process,” he said.

The Principal of Kingston Technical High School, Maulton Campbell, said his school was unable to fully implement the e-textbooks last year as they were still recovering from the learning loss from the coronavirus pandemic. Addressing this challenge before the school “jumps into the e-texts” is critical, he said.

“It couldn’t be last year because last year, we started out first doing diagnostic tests to find out where the children were, and then having done that, we did, like, five weeks, focus teaching, and then we do a six-week test to assess them again, and then we did some more interventions,” he explained.

However, Campbell added that he is expecting more utilisation of the e-textbooks during the upcoming school year.

The principal said that about 300 of 1,112 students at the institution are on PATH and were issued devices.

SENSITISATION CAMPAIGN

And while acknowledging that the adaptation rate of e-textbooks among students has been “disappointing”, Education Minister Fayval Williams said the ministry would be embarking on a sensitisation campaign to encourage students to utilise them more.

“We want to encourage our children to avail themselves of this. For one, it is way cheaper than the paper textbooks, so that means more of our students can have access to textbooks,” Williams said at a post-Cabinet press briefing on Wednesday.

She said that the ministry has spent approximately $158 million on e-textbook licences this year.

More than 51,000 English language e-textbooks have been purchased for grades seven to 11, and almost 16,000 integrated studies for grades seven to nine. Two thousand five hundred principles of accounts and 1,500 principles of business e-textbooks were purchased for grades 10 to 11.

Williams said the ministry’s decision to introduce e-textbooks to the school system was in response to an expressed need from stakeholders.

“We allocated resources to e-books. We sent out information to schools with regard to the licence, how to download the licence. We work with our schools because they are the ones who identify the students who are able to use the e-books because you have to have a device, so it’s not as if we blindly send out the e-books to the schools,” she said.

“I am happy to use the platform to encourage our parents as well to help their children, to inquire about it, and to all our principals across our schools to remind our students, in devotions, in their classrooms, of the availability of the e-books,” she added.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com