BookFusion, a global digital reading and learning platform, is proud to announce its collaboration with the Barbados Ministry of Educational Transformation as part of the Skills for the Future 2 programme. This partnership marks a significant milestone in Barbados’ ambitious national education transformation agenda, bringing comprehensive digital reading and learning capabilities to students across the island nation.

With an initial launch in November 2025, the initiative begins by providing all first-form students with access to BookFusion’s feature-rich digital reading platform on their new government-issued laptops, with plans to expand across all secondary schools throughout 2026. This collaboration supports Barbados’ bold vision to build the number one education system in the world within seven years, as articulated by Minister of Educational Transformation Senator Chad Blackman.

A Comprehensive Partnership Beyond Technology

BookFusion serves as more than just a platform for this transformative initiative. We’ve delivered end-to-end solutions that include hosting educational content, providing sophisticated learning tools that work seamlessly across all devices both online and offline, and developing a strategic rollout plan to foster a thriving digital reading culture among students, teachers, and parents.

One of the deciding factors for the ministry to use our platform was that our commitment to education and the Caribbean region extends far beyond technology deployment.

Some of the resources BookFusion provides to Ministries for guidance

BookFusion conducted comprehensive training sessions for ICT coordinators, teachers, and faculty members to ensure confident adoption of digital learning methodologies. We also undertook the critical task of converting textbooks that previously existed only in print into fully functional eBooks—note: not merely scanned PDFs, but epub digital editions with features like embedded video content, resizable text, built-in dictionaries and translators, and read-along capabilities that help students engage deeply with their learning materials.

As the liaison between the Ministry and publishers, BookFusion also facilitates the distribution of educational content while providing robust analytics. This gives educators and administrators valuable insights into platform usage, reading patterns, and engagement metrics to inform teaching strategies. Our support extends to the general public, ensuring that parents and community members can access assistance when needed.
“BookFusion allows for collaboration between students, teachers and their parents,” explains Asha-Akua Stoute, communications specialist with the Skills for the Future 2 programme. “BookFusion is now integrative in that it allows parents to also read along with their children, teachers to give their children resources that help them develop cognitively as well as recreationally, and we find that the BookFusion platform definitely does that for us.”

Chief Education Officer Dr. Ramona Archer-Bradshaw emphasized how the platform strengthens the education ecosystem:

“This platform strengthens the hands of our educators. It allows teachers to curate materials, organise resources by theme or ability, and support differentiated learning within the classroom. Teachers can share resources, lesson ideas, and reading lists with each other, creating a culture of collaboration across schools.”

The livestream of the partnership event between BookFusion and Barbados Ministry of Educational Transformation

Empowering Diverse Learners with Accessible Technology

This is not just an addition of screens in the classroom. BookFusion’s platform addresses the real-world challenges facing Caribbean students through practical, inclusive features designed to make learning more accessible for everyone.

Offline Access for Uninterrupted Learning: Recognising that consistent internet connectivity remains a barrier for many learners, our robust offline capabilities ensure that students can access their educational materials anytime, anywhere, whether they’re at home, on the bus, in the bush or in any area with limited connectivity. Students can download content at school and study at home without requiring continuous internet access.

Built-in Accessibility for Diverse Learners: Our text-to-speech functionality with authentic voice models enables read-along experiences that benefit emerging readers, students with visual impairments, and those who learn better through auditory processing. Dyslexia-friendly fonts, resizable text, and adjustable display settings ensure that every student can customize their reading experience to match their needs. Interactive features like highlighting, note-taking, and annotation help kinesthetic learners engage actively with text, while the Highlights Feed allows students to review and organize their key insights efficiently.

Cross-Platform, Cross-Device Flexibility: BookFusion works seamlessly on any device students already own, whether it’s the government-issued laptop, a family tablet, or a smartphone, ensuring equitable access regardless of household resources. This means no additional investment is required from families, and students can access their learning materials on the devices they’re most comfortable using.

Empowered Teaching and Lighter Workloads: Teachers can instruct from any device, assign interactive activities, create auto-marked quizzes to reduce workload, and share highlights and notes that sync directly to students’ devices, extending classroom discussion beyond school hours. The platform makes it easier to support diverse learners with built-in accessibility tools and provides visibility into student engagement and progress.

Stress-Free Support for Parents: Parents can access their child’s booklist for free from the app, gain visibility into what their children are learning through shared notes and highlights, and provide homework support more effectively with built-in dictionaries, translators, and reading assistance features, all without needing to invest in data plans or new devices.

Accessible Digital Textbooks: Pioneering Inclusive Education

A cornerstone of this partnership is our work developing Accessible Digital Textbooks (ADTs) that go far beyond traditional eBook formats. These pioneering educational resources feature dyslexia-friendly fonts, resizable text, text-to-speech with read-along functionality, embedded video content, and interactive epub3 features that boost engagement across different learning styles and abilities. By ensuring that textbooks are fully functional digital editions rather than simple scans, we’re creating equitable access for all students, including those with diverse learning needs.

BookFusion’s Journey with Accessible Digital Textbooks (ADTs)

Building on Caribbean Success: A Regional Movement

This collaboration builds on BookFusion’s growing presence throughout the Caribbean region, embodying a principle that guides our work across the islands. As Prime Minister Mia Mottley has said, “we are always better, always stronger, working together.” This partnership exemplifies that spirit of collaboration by bringing together government, technology, publishers, and educators across the Caribbean to create a unified ecosystem that serves every student.

For over five years, we’ve partnered with Jamaica’s Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth & Information, where the platform now supports more than 124,000 active students, teachers, and families. BookFusion powers Jamaica’s digital library, interactive content, and inclusive reading tools, demonstrating the transformative impact of accessible digital learning infrastructure at scale.

The Jamaican pilot has shown remarkable results in supporting literacy and digital engagement. With over 150,000 devices donated through the programme and 300,000 active users across the Caribbean in the last 12 months alone, BookFusion has proven its capacity to deliver robust, scalable solutions that meet the unique needs of Caribbean education systems.

We’re proud partners with Grenada, and we previously supported Trinidad and Tobago through Phase 1, helping enable the creation of their own locally developed content. We’re now awaiting the next milestone as the initiative progresses, while continuing to work with other countries across the region to develop accessible digital textbooks and explore new digital learning formats.This regional approach creates a powerful network effect: shared digital infrastructure across islands reduces costs, lowers risks, and accelerates adoption. Ministries benefit from economies of scale and continuous feature improvements at no extra charge. Lessons learned in one island become improvements for all, creating a regional network of shared insights, data, and best practices.

We collaborate with Caribbean and global publishers to create high-quality digital editions that are accurate, accessible, and curriculum-aligned. This collaborative approach ensures that students across the region have access to the best educational content while publishers can reach wider audiences through our platform. By working together (governments, educators, publishers, and technology partners) we’re building something far greater than any single entity could achieve alone.

A Vision for Transformative Education

The Skills for the Future 2 programme, supported by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), represents a comprehensive approach to educational transformation in Barbados. As Francesco de Simone, IDB Chief of Operations, and Sabine Rieble-Aubourg, IDB Senior Education Specialist and team leader for operations in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, have emphasized through their work in the region, these initiatives aim to equip students with the digital literacy, critical thinking, and technological competencies essential for success in the 21st century.

Stephen Savoury, project coordinator with Skills for the Future 2, articulated the programme’s transformative vision:

“Our curriculum reform is about moving from rote memorisation to relentless curiosity. From ‘What is the answer?’ to ‘What is the question?’ We are integrating critical thinking, digital literacy, and emotional intelligence into the very DNA of every lesson. We are not preparing students for yesterday’s factories. We’re empowering creators for tomorrow’s unknown challenges.”

Looking Forward: Innovation on the Horizon

BookFusion’s commitment to the children of Barbados extends far beyond the current launch. We’re continuously innovating with new features designed to enhance learning outcomes and engagement:

Barbados National Shared Library: A comprehensive digital resource accessible to all Barbadians, extending learning opportunities beyond the classroom and into every home.

AI-Powered Reading Support: Custom reading levels, text simplification, summarization, and “chat with your book” functionality will allow every learner to get explanations, ask questions, and engage with content at a level that matches their needs.

Social Reading and Discussions: Features that enable students to engage in meaningful conversations about their learning materials, fostering collaborative learning and critical thinking.

Flashcards and Practice Tools: Simple but powerful revision tools that help students retain key concepts and prepare more confidently for exams.

Detailed Statistics and Insights: Enhanced analytics to provide educators and administrators with deeper understanding of reading patterns, engagement levels, and learning outcomes.

Save Articles from the Web: Tools for students to capture and organize learning resources they discover online, building personal knowledge libraries.

BookFusion and the Barbados Ministry of Educational Transformation invite the community to follow along as this exciting collaboration unfolds. By combining the Ministry’s commitment to inclusive, world-class education with BookFusion’s innovative platform and comprehensive support infrastructure, this partnership is redefining how Caribbean students access, engage with, and derive value from educational content in the digital age.

We are honored to be part of this journey and deeply excited about what we will create together in the years ahead. As we continue to expand digital learning opportunities across Barbados and throughout the Caribbean region, we remain committed to the principle that guides all our work: we are always better, always stronger, working together.

About BookFusion

BookFusion is a global eBook platform that provides users with seamless access to their eBooks across devices. Starting from a Caribbean student’s dorm room vision, BookFusion has become a global movement in connected and accessible education. The platform’s robust features—including offline access, cross-device synchronization, text-to-speech with natural voices, interactive annotation tools, and comprehensive analytics—make it the ideal solution for educational institutions seeking to empower learners in the digital age. With a focus on improving the reading experience and enabling publishers to reach wider audiences, BookFusion is dedicated to creating a better, more connected world of digital reading.

About the Barbados Ministry of Educational Transformation

The Ministry of Educational Transformation is leading Barbados’ ambitious agenda to build the number one education system in the world within seven years. Through the Skills for the Future 2 programme and other transformative initiatives, the Ministry is reimagining education in Barbados, moving from traditional rote learning to an approach that emphasizes critical thinking, digital literacy, emotional intelligence, and inclusive education that removes every barrier to student success.

📰 To know more about the Ministry of Education’s collaboration with BookFusion, read the Government Information Service article by Joyanne Kelly (Nov 27, 2025) and the Barbados Today article by Lourianne Graham (Nov 27, 2025), and watch the following videos by CBC News Barbados and by Ministry of Education Barbados: