Academic session likely to be delayed due to policy change

Education dept to exclude 'only international publishers' condition from textbook publishing policy

KARACHI: The provision of free-of-cost course books by the school's section of the education and literacy department to government-run schools is likely to be delayed due to a controversial publishing policy. The policy, marred by glaring errors, was revisited with parts of the tender changed, and is set to delay the printing of books. This could have a detrimental effect on the academic session, which is scheduled to begin on April 1, 2018.

The new policy failed to attract the interest of international publishers, learned Express News. According to reliable sources, only one international publisher showed interest in printing syllabus books, which has forced the department to exclude the 'only international publishers' condition from their policy.



This condition was inserted at the behest of the department's now-sacked secretary Abdul Aziz Uqaili. The department has taken a complete u-turn on their publishing policy by changing the conditions they earlier set of using international paper and publishers for printing books.

Hence, the announcement of a new tender has been postponed and will be released today (Thursday). The department had mistakenly drafted a tender for machinery instead of course books. The u-turn of the department's policy has given local publishers an opportunity to participate in the process, whereas the condition of where publishers being asked to declare their assets worth Rs1 billion, has now been relaxed.



Uqaili had earlier released tenders exclusively to international publishers to print course books worth Rs30 million for all government-run schools, including the decision to import paper from China for printing. But the size of the paper mentioned in the tender is only available in Pakistan and Uqaili had to take the decision back.

It has now been decided that only Pakistani mills' paper will be used.
This entire mess has created a Herculean task for the department to get the books printed and ready before the start of the next academic session as the announcement of the tender will be made today (Thursday) and will likely consume the entire month.