SOME secondary school students will have to share textbooks with classmates when schools year reopen next month, as books supplied under the administration’s National Textbooks Programme will be short this year.

Senator Colin Campbell, the information minister and government chief spokesman, said the lack of sufficient money for the programme forced the administration to slash the programme by 75 per cent this year.

“Cabinet was informed that because the original book prices exceed the ministry’s budget, the quantity of books supplied had to be adjusted downwards and in some categories as far down as 75 per cent of the original amount required,” Campbell told Monday’s post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House.

The minister told reporters that while certain key subject areas and all grade seven students will receive a full set of books, books for some subjects in the vocational areas will be provided as class sets, that is where students have to return them to the teacher at the end of class, to be used by other students.

He admitted that there were concerns among Cabinet ministers at their weekly meeting Monday about the effect of the reduction on students and their expected performances, “but, as you can imagine the urgent thing now is to get started with the allocations which the Ministry has available”. At the same time, Campbell announced that Cabinet approved four contracts for the textbooks programme to:

. Carlong Publishers, $169.7 million;

. Sangster’s Bookstore, $81.9 million;

. Kingston Bookshop, $278.6 million; and

. Book Wizard Limited, $65.5 million.

He said Cabinet also approved two supply contracts for the school-feeding programme, one to T Geddes grant for $41.1 million, and the other to Grace Kennedy and Company Limited of $11.7 million to provide supplies for the traditional and nutri-bun components of the programme.