Get to know » Teachers » Resources:
Access to textbooks
On this page
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 Marshall Islands reported that 37% of grade five students and 48% of grade seven students had their own literacy textbooks. For numeracy, the numbers were higher; 66% of grade five and 61% of grade seven students had their own numeracy textbooks, Table TT2.1.
This means that two thirds of grade five students had no personal literacy textbook and one out of three had no numeracy textbook. Grade seven students were more likely to not have their own numeracy textbook (39%) but less likely to not have their own literacy textbook (52%). A significant proportion of students had no easy access to textbooks to study from.
There were large differences seen across the 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, the range was even higher, from 0% to 100%.
The full range of teacher responses by literacy, numeracy, and grade level is shown in Table TT2.2.
What does this mean?
Access to textbooks varies throughout the Marshall Islands 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 individual student textbooks are not deemed necessary by some schools. Textbook access across both grade 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 difference in textbook access may have.
