The first batch of science textbooks for basic schools are ready for distribution across the country.
The printing of the science books awarded to the Appointed Time Printing forms part of government’s decision to print all textbooks for the new curriculum locally.
The contract for the other core subjects, including, Mathematics, English and Social Science books were also awarded to other local printing companies and have within 120days to deliver it.
The first batch of the science books had been dispatched to the Volta and Greater Accra regions with the other regions scheduled to receive theirs in the course of the week.
In all about 300,000 of the science books are to be received by the regional directorates of education for onward distribution to the district directorates in the two regions.
At an inspection tour of the books before being dispatched, the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw OseiAdutwum, expressed satisfaction with the quality of work undertaken by Appointed Time Printing, one of the local printing houses contracted to print government textbooks locally.
He said the level of professionalism demonstrated by Appointed Time Printing justified the confidence reposed in local producers by the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
DrAdutwum said the government was committed to deliver quality education to the people of Ghana and would continue to invest in all that was required in that direction.
He, therefore, commended the management and staff of the company for delivering ahead of schedule and urged other companies printing other books to follow suit.
On his part, the head of marketing and operations, Mr Charles Adoo, said his outfit were tasked with printing all the science textbooks for the basic schools and that was exactly what they had done.
He explained that even though they were mandated to finish printing within 120days starting from June 1, they were actually ahead of schedule.
Mr Adoo said so far more than half was ready for distribution and assured that by the end of August, all the regions would have received their supplies.
He said, Appointed Time Printing had the capacity to deliver on whatever the printing needs of the country were and therefore urged the government to further consider them in future deals.
The issue of text books became a subject of concern about two years ago when the school curriculum was changed without the accompanying books for teaching and learning.
To deal with the issue the Ghana Education Service (GES) provided teachers with training and instruction packs to fall on for the meantime.
The production of the new text books, therefore, comes as a great relief for teachers and parents as well as the students.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
