Students lose weeks to textbook fiasco
Third grade students attend class at the Mashal Model School on the outskirts of Islamabad. PHOTO: REUTERS
Teaching of several subjects in thousands of government schools in Punjab has not begun three weeks after the start of the academic year because of delay in the distribution of free textbooks among the students.
Students and parents in some areas have reportedly started going to the markets to buy textbooks to save their time.
According to sources in the Punjab Textbook Board, the process of publication of the books has been delayed in the production and manuscripts departments.
The new academic year started in the province on April 1 and the board had to publish and deliver the books to the Punjab School Education Department before the date.
The department provides textbooks free of charge to the students of the public sector schools.
The Punjab government had allocated a substantial budget to provide free textbooks to the students of the 48,000 schools in all districts.
However, the textbook board has failed to publish the books this year.
According to sources in the education department, thousands of students of primary and middle classes are without textbooks.
On the other hand, the school administrators have not started academic activities in various grades and subjects because of the lack of books.
"The students and teachers can do little in the absence of textbooks and we are waiting for the books like other stakeholders," said Punjab Teachers Union president Allah Rakha Gujjar while speaking to The Express Tribune.
He said the situation was affecting the children from the families that could not afford to admit them to private schools.
The teachers' leader said the provincial government should take notice of the problem.
An official of the Punjab Textbook Board said the production department had failed to meet the deadline of publishing the books.
He said officials of the production and manuscript departments of the board were involved in the publishing process.
The official said the delay in publishing the books had been caused by mismanagement but the higher authorities had not taken notice of the situation.
He conceded that the students were unlikely to receive the textbooks during the coming month as they were being printed at a slow pace.
On the other hand, a customer at a bookshop said he was also facing difficulty in buying the textbooks of a private school.
Shahbaz Toor said he had been searching in the Urdu Bazaar for books for his children studying in a private school. He said he had visited the market in vain several times during the past month.
An official said the school education department had sought about 1.5 million books from the Punjab Textbook Board this year.
An official of the board's production department declined to comment on the issue.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 19th, 2023.