–2021 Auditor General Report shows

DESPITE the former APNU+AFC government spending over $989 million on textbooks from January 2017 to December 2018, several schools suffered shortages of textbooks due to the Ministry of Education failing to supply 71 per cent of the reading materials requested by schools in several regions.

Although this was the case, many schools having shortages of textbooks, 17 schools had over 5,000 in excess, unused units of the same textbooks stored. Several cases of textbooks were also found to be inappropriately stored, resulting in damage and contamination by rodents and other pests.

This was revealed in a Performance Audit conducted by the Audit Office on the “Receipt, Storage, Allocation and Distribution of Textbooks to Schools” for the period January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2019.

“Rats and termites-damaged textbooks were stored at schools. Suddie, Soesdyke and New Amsterdam Primary Schools had textbooks that were damaged by termites and rodents and exposed to rodents’ faeces. This is a health hazard to learners and teachers who may come into contact with the damaged and faeces-infected textbooks,” the audit noted.

The audit sought to determine whether the then Education Ministry and its Book Distribution Unit, Regional Departments of Education and schools managed the textbooks process sufficiently to meet the needs of learners in an efficient and timely manner, and in compliance with the ministry’s book policy, relevant laws and regulations.

“We examined the needs requests presented by Regions Two, Four, Six and Seven to determine the number of textbooks needed by each region. The total needs amounted to 303,422. We found that 215,381, or 71 per cent of the books, were not given to the regions,” the report stated.

“The Book Distribution did not meet the needs of Aurora, Three Miles, and Bartica Secondary Schools for 2017 and 2018. These schools needed almost 3,000 core textbooks for English Language and Mathematics. The unit’s denial of each school’s requests could have negatively impacted the learners,” the report revealed.

In Regions Two, Four, Six and Seven, textbooks were physically counted and compared to the number of learners enrolled in Grades One, Two and Four for primary schools and Grades Seven, Nine, and 10 for secondary schools, with the findings showing that a combined number of textbooks available for the core subjects in each grade was insufficient to distribute to each learner.

Some 25 primary schools and 16 secondary schools had a shortage of books for all the grades examined.

The ministry’s Book Distribution Unit is responsible for receiving, storing and distributing books to public schools across Guyana, under the book policy. The regional departments of education which fall under the ambit of the Regional Democratic Councils (RDCs), distribute textbooks to schools in the regions.

The audit looked at textbooks distributed to 590 schools across the 11 school districts, of which 473 primary schools and 117 secondary schools.

The Audit Office made 16 recommendations to management of the Book Distribution Unit for improvements. Through the full implementation of the recommendations, textbooks allocation will be better managed to meet the needs of schools.