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By Kisean Joseph
The Ministry of Education (MoE) has taken a bold step to reintroduce e-books into the nation’s education system.
Minister of Education Daryll Matthew addressed concerns during a recent town hall meeting and acknowledged the programme’s history while outlining a new approach.
However, only 23 people attended the meeting — which sought to get the public’s feedback on the initiative – including MoE officials, the United Progressive Party’s (UPP’s) Member of Parliament for St John’s Rural West, Richard Lewis, and the UPP’s caretaker for St John’s City South, Franz deFrietas.
“The e-book situation can be divided into two components – a political component, and a technical component,” Matthew explained. “The political component exists simply because of how it is perceived in the minds of the people, given the developments and how the implementation took place,” he said.
The minister’s strategy focusses on separating technical merit from political debate. “I’ve given my team in the Ministry of Education the task of determining whether or not this product is good technically … if it is technically sound, if it is beneficial, then we will take care of the political part of it,” Matthew said.
The ministry’s current strategy emphasises transparency and public engagement. “We need to start taking those steps to demystify and de-scandalise e-books in the minds of Antiguans and Barbudans,” he explained while announcing plans for additional town hall meetings to address public concerns.
Director of Education Clare Browne, who has been involved with the initiative since its inception, defended the investment in digital learning resources while addressing common misconceptions.
“Many people hear e-books [and] they think e-books are some heavy devices that one or two of them that became obsolete were dumped at the Cook’s Dump,” Browne said as he tried to clarify that the platform is more sophisticated than many people realise.
“Every other sector uses technology to enhance what they do. And so, if every other sector uses technology to enhance what they do, then why is it that education cannot do the same thing?” he questioned.
“In Antigua and Barbuda, we don’t have any sort of raw resources; we have people, and we need to invest heavily in the human capital,” he said.
Browne also acknowledged that while the initial rollout wasn’t perfect, the platform’s effectiveness shouldn’t be dismissed due to early challenges.
“With everything that you start out with … there is never, ever, ever a perfect rollout,” he said, adding that implementation issues didn’t indicate fundamental flaws in the product.
However, he remains committed to modernising the education system. “We cannot go back … we need to continue to find the best possible education system, the best possible way to teach our students with the best possible tools that we can afford,” he said, adding that today’s “digital-native” students require contemporary teaching methods.
Meanwhile, MP Lewis, who was initially concerned about the e-books, voiced his support for the revised implementation approach.
“I think the ministry is making a conscious effort this time to get it right,” he said. “The pilot was done, and I made the suggestion that they should do a phased rollout of this thing.”
However, deFreitas raised critical infrastructure concerns about the e-book initiative, highlighting challenges with internet connectivity in schools and teacher readiness.
During the town hall, he noted that many schools lack sufficient bandwidth to support hundreds of students and devices simultaneously. DeFreitas also emphasised the need for a comprehensive public relations strategy and questioned whether the education system could transition from traditional teaching methods to digital learning within three years, given the varying technological comfort levels among teachers.
Following the success of models in other Caribbean nations, the MoE has already implemented a pilot programme in secondary schools with the intent to expanding it to primary schools.
The initiative began with all public secondary schools to meet minimum viability requirements for the e-book provider Fortuna Pix.
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This post was originally published on here
