THE Ministry of Education (MoE) has finally completed its production of the locally produced reader and work books in the Atlantic Reader series of literacy textbooks, which will help the ministry to avoid the high cost of importing such books that need to be used in the teaching of literacy to grade school pupils.

The book one to three in the series were first launched in February 2015, when emphasis was placed on how many third world countries were disadvantaged in education due to the extraordinarily high prices for textbooks.

Produced in full colour, the Atlantic Reader books were created to aid in the development of reading skills, written with Guyanese culture in mind, with characters, pictorial representations and scenarios and focused on a balanced approach of reading skills at the various grade levels.

When the first three readers were launched in early 2015, the accompanying workbooks, as well as books four to six, along with their workbooks were also expected to follow shortly after.
However, when the government was changed in May 2015, continuation of work on the project was completely stalled and no progress was made.

Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, who had been at the helm of the creation of the books in 2015, made it one of her primary goals to get the series completed when she returned to office in August 2020, as she had questioned the previous government on several occasions about completion of the books.

“Although I had asked several times from the floor of the House for their completion, sadly, nothing was done to move towards the competition of any of the remaining books. I am beyond pleased to announce that we have completed the work books for Readers One, Two, and Three, and readers and workbooks for levels four, five and six,” Manickchand noted.

Manickchand thanked the hardworking staff of the MoE, who worked towards completion of the long- awaited textbooks.