Editorial
School textbooks on day one
Kudos to govt. and Ministry of Education
The distribution of free textbooks for primary and secondary level students is happily underway. It is certainly commendable that in this particular sector, among some other sectors, the government has been demonstrating a degree of efficiency that could well be replicated in other areas. The textbook distribution programme is of particular significance because of fears lately expressed about some printers being unable to supply the books to schools in time for distribution. We are not suggesting that everything has turned out well with the inauguration of the distribution on Saturday. But we have reasons to think, now that Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid has reassured us on this score, that students in the primary and secondary schools will have all their books in hand in the course of the next one week. The seriousness the minister and his department have consistently attached to the textbook issue convinces us that matters are under control. That is a far cry from the crises which earlier overwhelmed students and schools owing to uncertainty about the textbooks being available on schedule.
Even as the pace of textbook distribution goes ahead, we feel the government should be on its toes regarding a completion of the entire process. So far it has weathered quite a few storms, notable among which has been the devastating fire which ravaged a warehouse containing textbook materials last year. This year, it appears, the authorities have been able to tide over the problems generated by printers defaulting on a completion of work. It is particularly problems of the latter kind the government must be alert to. In fact, the near crisis the authorities were thrown into this year when some printers failed to produce their quota of books should serve as a caveat for the coming years. There must be alternative plans the government can fall back on if and when some printers are found falling behind in doing the work they should be doing. More importantly, before a firm is entrusted with the responsibility of printing the textbooks, the authorities must go into the antecedents of the printers to convince themselves that they will be in a position to deliver the goods on time.
Printing and distributing 23.22 crore books among 3.22 crore primary and secondary students is a herculean task. The satisfaction is in knowing that the ministry of education, the NCTB and others have demonstrated their ability to do the job.
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