will be distributed throughout the community.

Acting Education Permanent Secretary Mr. Robert Horton made the promise yesterday after visiting the former Devonshire Academy where the books had been abandoned.

His visit to the school, with Chief Education Officer Mr. Dean Furbert, was prompted by a report in The Royal Gazette in which angry residents -- who saw the books blowing in the wind -- accused Government of "wasting taxpayers' dollars''.

The school materials included English language, literature, and speech textbooks and several copies of literary classics.

Student records dating back to the 1960s, when the school was Prospect Secondary School for Girls, were also found in cardboard boxes dampened by rain.

And while most of the records were school attendance registers and short-term student assessments which are usually destroyed after a number of years, Mr.

Horton said the short-term records were confidential and should not have been left behind.

"I guess it was just carelessness that they were not destroyed,'' he said.

"It was only when the demolition crew came in that they were discovered. It is really inexcusable that they (the records) were there.'' Mr. Horton said the department did not know that books were left in the dilapidated Devonshire Academy building which will eventually be demolished as a part of Government's plans for a senior secondary school at the site.

The books, which were mainly English workbooks and novels, were now in a "safe and dry place'', he added.

And early in the post-Christmas school term teachers will have the opportunity to take them, Mr. Horton said.

Any that are left over, particularly novels, will be distributed to the prisons, homes, and throughout the community.

See Senate report, Page 10.