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Access to Textbooks
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Teachers were asked about the number of textbooks for literacy and numeracy that grade five and grade seven students had access to. They were provided with five options to choose from.
- Each student has their own textbook.
- Two students share one textbook.
- More than two students share one textbook.
- Only the teacher has the textbook.
- No textbook is provided.
Student access to textbooks
On average, teachers in Federated States of Micronesia reported that 34% of grade five students and 39% of grade seven students had their own literacy textbooks. For having their own numeracy textbooks, the percentage for grade five was higher – 47% – and 39% for grade seven. So, more than a third of students across the year levels had access to a personal textbook.
In contrast, about three out of ten grade five students either had no literacy textbook or only the teacher had a textbook. This finding was lower for grade five students for numeracy and grade seven students for both numeracy and reading. About two out of ten of these students either had no literacy or numeracy textbook or only the teacher had a textbook. A significant proportion of students had no easy access to textbooks to study from.
There were large differences seen across countries. In PILNA 2021 participating countries, the proportions of students having their own literacy and numeracy textbooks ranged from 0% to 87% for grade five students while for grade seven students, this range was even wider, from 0% to 100%.
The full range of teacher responses by literacy, numeracy, and year level is shown in Table TT2.2.
What does this mean?
Access to textbooks varies throughout Federated States of Micronesia schools, creating different learning environments for students, depending on the school they attend. The reasons for this are not known. It may be that some schools are experiencing resource issues or textbooks are not deemed necessary by some schools. Textbook access across both year levels varies significantly by country. This suggests that countries have distinct learning environments or textbook needs. As learning environments throughout the region are diverse, it is difficult to determine the effect on students that this textbook access variance may have.
