Finish printing school textbooks immediately

The government has been providing text books free of cost to primary and secondary level students since 2010. The tradition of handing out books to the students on the first day of the year has been going on since the beginning. However, this was not possible to hold the festival this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. This time however, the students are looking forward to getting their books on 1 January 2022.

The report on the progress on printing the text books on Friday is quite frustrating. Although there are less than 15 days left in this year, about 70 million out of the total 250 million books are yet to be printed. And some 15 per cent of the books for the primary level students have not been printed yet.

Sources at the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) say that although the printing of primary level books could be completed with a few exceptions, the printing of the books for secondary level students would not be completed by December.

According to further media reports, the NCTB is printing around 350 million books for about 40 million students at the primary and secondary level. Of them, some 247,155,202 books are for secondary level students and around 100 million primary level textbooks. As of 14 December, around 179.1 million secondary level books have been printed. However, after printing and subsequent ancillary work, only around 1.30 million books have been distributed at the upazila level.

In this situation, there is considerable doubt as to whether it will be possible to deliver all the books to the students on the first day of the year. The NCTB faces problems in printing every year.

The printing companies claim that the order for printing has been delayed due to re-tendering. The NCTB said the education ministry has delayed. But, it is NCTB who is responsible for printing books. The NCTB said the education ministry had delayed. NCTB is responsible for printing books. Then why did they accept that delay?