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Month into new session, Punjab government school students await textbooks
According to Punjab government school teachers, textbooks for Classes 1 to 10 were in a short-supply, negatively impacting the studies
Nearly a month into the new academic session, which began on April 1, government school students across the state still await the arrival of their textbooks.
According to government school teachers, textbooks for Classes 1 to 10 were in a short-supply, negatively impacting the studies.
Punjab School Education Board officials, meanwhile, said around 1.5 crore textbooks have already been sent to district headquarters. The remaining 18 lakh textbooks, they said, would be delivered in the coming days.
The board prints and supplies the books to the education department for further distribution to the students of up to Class 12, free of cost.
PSEB chairperson Satbir Bedi, while talking to HT, said, “We had planned to print and distribute the textbooks in three lots for this academic session. Of the three, two lots have already been distributed to the district headquarters of the education department. The third one will be distributed in the next few days.”
She said there could be some delay in the distribution of the textbooks at the district-headquarter level as the PSEB had already sent the majority of the books.
PSEB officials said the distribution process began on March 9, way before the session started. They further added that it was the education department officials who had to expedite the distribution process at the block level.
Studies suffer
A government school teacher in Patiala, not wishing to be named, said, “In the absence of new textbooks, we have to provide the students with old textbooks. However, old textbooks are not sufficient and a large number of students remain sans textbooks.”
School teachers said textbooks for mathematics, social sciences, Punjabi and home science were the ones that were not distributed.
Democratic Teachers Front (DTF) president Vikram Dev said the state government, like the previous ones, had failed to provide all the textbooks to the students before the session kicked off.
“The government should timely clear all pending dues towards the PSEB to streamline the printing and distribution process by the board. If PSEB fails to provide textbooks before the session starts, strict action should be taken against the board officials for their laxity,” he added.
