After not being held for two years due to Corona, the book distribution festival has started again in secondary and primary schools across the country including the capital. Naturally, children are overjoyed to receive new books on the first day of the year. After a long time, the students are seen having fun coming to the book festival. With the scent of a new book, they indulge in mischief. But this year there was a slight feeling of unfulfillment in the midst of all this.
Due to the shortage of new textbooks, the students did not get all the books according to the syllabus this time. Parents and students are dissatisfied with books prepared on low quality paper. On the other hand, during the book distribution ceremony, books of another class were also seen in the hands of students of one class. Many have mixed reactions to this.
The journey of National Textbook Day-2023 was started by the Minister of Education Dr. Dipu Moni and Primary and Mass Education Minister Zakir Hossain. The primary and pre-primary book festival started at the central playground of Dhaka University. On the other hand, Kapasia Pilot High School in Gazipur started the secondary school book festival.
Class II books are seen in the hands of some class IV students of Azimpur Government Primary School in the central playground of Dhaka University. At that time, fourth grade student Mahbur said, "They gave me books of class II". When asked if they will give books of his own class, he said, "I don`t know". One of his teachers present in this matter told Daily Post that they have brought books in a hurry, some class books may not have come. He said that they will see to it after going to school.
The teacher said that our pre-primary books have not arrived yet and only English books for class V have been received. Class IV English book is seen in the hands of Lamia, a Class V student of Gendaria Mahila Samiti Government Primary School. Apart from this, Anisha, a class four student of Agamsi Lane Government Primary School, said that the book she got last year was very beautiful white. This year`s book is printed in newsprint. This book will be needed to be handled with a lot more care.
At this time, Anisha`s mother said, this year the book is not very good; still got the new book. I hear that all the books will not be given now, they should be given with good covers. He said, children will not be able to sustain this book for a long time and it will be wasted.
Dissatisfaction has been seen among the parents regarding non-availability of books and low quality books in Madhyamik. Shefali Akhter, parent of Motijheel Girls High School, said, I got three books. Compared to the last year, the books this year are of much lower quality. These books are meant to be for small children that already treats their books roughly. These book will be torn up in six months.
Mahmudul Hasan, the parent of a student of Motijheel Boys` High School, said, "The book festival was held but my child did not get the book. Some of his classmates got books. It was not a problem if no one got it." In Dhaka Motijheel Government Girls High School, students of class VI and IX have received all the books. Students of class VII and VIII received three and seven books respectively. Zara Islam, a student of the seventh grade, said, "It feels good to have the book in hand."
But it would have been better to have all the books together. In Motijheel Boys School, students of all classes are given two books each. In Secondary, students of class VI got all the books but students of other classes did not get more than two or three books. In this regard, Dewan Tahera Akhter, head teacher of Motijheel Boys High School, said that it was not possible to give books to everyone due to lack of enough books. I hope to be able to give all the books to everyone within this month. However, positive thoughts have also been seen among the parents about the book festival, a parent named Imam Hossain said that the book festival is really a great achievement for our children. As a child, I used to go to different houses to buy old books. There was a lot of trouble to get old books. The government is distributing free books to everyone on the first day of the year. We welcome the initiative of the government. However, the teachers say that due to the shortage of books, it was not possible to give books to them. I hope all the books will be given within this month."
Regarding the book crisis, the Minister of State for Primary and Public Education Zakir Hossain said, "We could not give all our books from the press due to lack of paper. We hope to be able to distribute all the books to the students within the next month." Meanwhile, so far 80 percent of the secondary level and 65 percent of the primary level books have reached the upazila level, said the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB). Although the Printing Industry Association claims, the shortfall is much higher than the NCTB estimates.
Paper shortage has intensified the crisis as the printing of primary books has started late. In addition to poor quality books, there is a fear that a large number of students will not get the new books on time. It is known that this year textbook festival is being held with a shortage of about 9 crore textbooks. This year, 33 crore 91 lakh 12 thousand 300 copies of textbooks will be distributed free of charge among 4 crore 9 lakh 15 thousand 381 students across the country during the book festival. Out of which 9 crore 66 lakh eight thousand 245 books will be distributed to 2 crore 19 lakh 84 thousand 823 students at pre-primary and primary level.
JH
