Lalmonirhat students yet to get textbooks

27 January 2009, 18:00 PM

A Correspondent, Lalmonirhat

An acute crisis of textbooks has been prevailing here since beginning of the new academic session. As a result, study of about one lakh students of classes six to nine in 270 junior and secondary schools is being hampered. Books on social science, general science, accounting, physics, chemistry, geology, agriculture, economics and civics are yet to arrive at libraries in Aditmari, Kaliganj, Hatibandha, Patgram and Sadar upazilas. Book traders could not say about arrival of the books. Guardians have to procure books at prices much higher than that fixed by the school textbook board. Book traders have created an artificial crisis of books, they alleged. But local book traders alleged that publishers of Bangla Bazar in Dhaka are not supplying books to them on commission following withdrawan of commission on books by the government. Previously, there had been 17 percent commission on each board book, they said adding, publishers of Bangla Bazar are forcing them to buy forbidden notebooks. When contacted, district education officer Azad Rahman said the crisis is a 'national problem'.