A concern arises that many students are unlikely to get free textbooks on the first day of 2025 as the procedure to print textbooks has already been behind the schedule.
An estimated 35 crore free textbooks would be distributed among the students for the next year, as per the officials of National Curriculum and Textbook Board.
Confusion remains about the tender process of the textbook printing as the education adviser to the interim government, Wahiduddin Mahmud, on August 21 said that all tenders for the next year鈥檚 books had been cancelled.
He also said that the ministry would form a review committee to amend some contents of the textbooks and expressed hope that all textbooks would be distributed on January 1 next year.聽
After a meeting with the adviser on Tuesday at the secretariat, National Curriculum and Textbook Board acting chairman professor Rabiul Kabir Chwodhury told 抖阴精品 at his office in the afternoon that he did not get any directive from the education ministry about stopping the tender process.
鈥業 discussed with the adviser about the review committee to review the textbooks and within a week it will be formed,鈥� he said.
The printing industry leaders said that if the government follow the usual procedures then approximately half of the books would not be printed by this December.
Under the banner of Anti-Discrimination Printing Businesses, they held a demonstration in front of the board on Tuesday to press a 10-point charter of demands, including cancellation of all tenders, give opportunity to all eligible printing companies to take part in the new tender procedure and legal action against all corrupt former and present NCTB officials.
The government has been distributing free textbooks from pre-primary to secondary level students since 2010.
This year, around 30.7 crore copies of new textbooks were distributed among 3,81,28,324 pre-primary, primary, secondary, secondary vocational, ebtedayee, dakhil, vocational, national minority, and visually challenged students across the country, involving over Tk聽1,400 crore.
Each year the textbook festival is held on January 1. Many students did not get the books during the festival this year and they got the books throughout the January month.
Md Didarul Alam, convener of the Anti-Discrimination Printing Businesses, told 抖阴精品 that usually the tender process for printing textbooks is completed by June.
This year the board called tenders for printing books of Class I, II and III on June 2 and for Class VIII books on July 17, he said.
鈥楾he board sent final documents to the ministry after evaluating June 2 tender,鈥� he said, adding, 鈥榯ill now the board only completed 45 per cent tender works.鈥�
NCTB acting chairman Rabiul Kabir said that he joined the post recently and did not know much about this year鈥檚 tenders yet.聽
Textbook Printers and Markets Association of Bangladesh president Tofayel Khan said that usually 55 to 56 printing companies print books though there are around 300 more companies.
鈥榃ith the problem in the tender process and reviewing the textbooks, the government should let more companies complete the task in time,鈥� he said and added that otherwise only around 60 per cent books could be printed by this year.
Meanwhile the protesting printing businesspeople on Tuesday also demanded legal action against the printing companies for printing low quality books, removal of all corrupt board officials and make the rules easier for printing books.
After the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina-led government on August 5 amid a mass uprising led by students, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus-led interim government assumed power on August 8 and different changes came in the previous government decisions.
