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Access to textbooks
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Teachers were asked about the number of textbooks for literacy and numeracy that year four and year six 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
More year six students than year four students had access to their own textbook. On average, teachers in Solomon Islands reported that 14% of year four students and 36% of year six students had their own literacy textbooks. For numeracy, 12% of year four and 29% of year six students were reported as having their own numeracy textbooks (Table TT2.1).
Almost no students in year four (literacy, 0%; numeracy, 1%) or year six (literacy, 1%; numeracy, 0%) had no access to a textbook.
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 year four students while for year six students, the range was even higher, 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 Solomon Islands schools, creating different learning environments for students, depending on the school they attend. Importantly, almost all students have access to a textbook either through their peers or their teacher. It is not known what effects, if any, textbook access has on student performance or learning environments.
