Shawdesh Desk:

The education adviser Wahiduddin Mahmud on Wednesday expressed regrets to the students and their guardians for not distributing all free textbooks on the first day of this year.

At a ceremony he also said that though the students would be happy after getting the good quality books which would not become damaged in the middle of the year.

The National Curriculum and Textbook Board chairman AKM Reazul Hassan at the programne said that till Tuesday out of 41 crore textbooks they had sent around 6 crore books to different upazilas for distribution.

‘Around 4 crore more books are waiting to be loaded on trucks and these may be sent by today,’ he said.

By January 5 the rest of the primary books, by January 10 eight more books of the secondary level and by January 20 rest of the books would be given, he added.

The adviser and the chairman said these from a ceremony, to inaugurate the online version of the textbooks, held at the International Mother Language Institute in the capital.

This year, according to the NCTB, 40.15 crore copies of textbooks––62 lakh for pre-primary, 8.55 crore for primary and 30.81 crore for secondary students—will be distributed among about four crore pre-primary, primary, secondary, secondary vocational, ibtedayi, dakhil vocational, national minority and visually challenged students across the country.

Besides, 1.92 lakh copies of textbooks will be distributed among the students from five national minority communities.

At the programme NCTB chairman professor AKM Reazul Hassan said that on September 1 the government issued a circular on September 1 postponing the 2021 national curriculum and the textbooks under it following the demands of the students and their guardians.

The government decided to return to the 2012 curriculum and following that the board reviewed 441 books in two and half a month, he also said.

For the Class X students, this year for an extra around 6.79 crore new books were being printed for going back to the previous curriculum which also raised the cost, he continued.

The chairman also said that following the instruction of the adviser, this year we used 82 per cent brightness on 70 gram paper for which reason the quality of papers is better.

In past years there was huge corruption regarding distribution of these books, he said, adding, to prevent the corruption this year all from the senior to the field levels were active.

‘After considering the misuse of money year after year in the name of book festival, the education adviser said that our aim is to distribute quality textbooks to the students in time,’ he added.