It will take approximately $5B to adequately address the textbook situation and provide texts for primary and secondary school children with four core texts, and additional reading for primary schools.

Minister of Education, Henry Jeffrey in a television interview on budgetary allocations to the Education sector said a couple of years previously $56M was spent on textbooks. This has now moved to $300M, along with an additional $200M to be expended through the Education Fast Track Initiative (EFTI).

Another focus this year will be building and rehabilitation of schools. Jeffrey said large sums are spent on improving the physical infrastructure of schools.

The Minister said there is a lot more that must be done on the physical infrastructure of schools but not in isolation. All concerned must play a vital role.

Further, Jeffrey said school buildings are not being fully utilized although considerable sums are spent on them.

He made reference to neighbouring Brazil where school buildings are used up to 11pm, while in Guyana schools are only used for five hours each day.

Minister Jeffery said that in the Georgetown District alone a previous allocation of $55M has increased to $231M. This however, does not include allocation for rehabilitation and construction under the Secondary Schools Reform Project (SSRP) and the Basic Education Access and Management Support (BEAMS) programme.

BEAMS will also address the modernization of the Ministry of Education especially in the areas of Information technology. A number of people from the various Regions are also being incorporated into the process of modernising the Sector.

Jeffrey said he is against speaking of GEAP, BEAMS and SSRP, and others as projects. He would prefer to address them as strategies the Ministry is implementing to develop the sector. These are all part of the process to upgrade teachers' capacity, and develop curriculum, among other things.