Kids go empty-handed as new textbooks yet to be distributed

With textbooks, carrying new syllabus, for Classes 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 12 released only on the school re-opening day, most of the students carried empty bags to the schools on Tuesday.

As the transportation of books started only on Monday, the textbooks is expected to be distributed to the schools only by next week.

A senior official from Education Department told DT Next that printing of textbooks could not be completed on time. “Lot of corrections were made in the text books since it is a new syllabus. Therefore, the printing work could not be completed on time”, he added.

The official said that it would take at least one week to distribute the books to all the schools. However, he said that textbooks were supplied to some of the government schools on the re-opening day itself. “The textbooks could be downloaded from the web portal”, he said adding students and teachers were asked to access the first portions of the subjects online for a week.

He also pointed out that last year distribution of textbooks especially for Class 11 was delayed since it was a new syllabus. However, parents and teachers were annoyed that government should have supplied the textbook well before the reopening of schools. “Otherwise, the government should have reopened the schools one week later due to summer heat”, S Kalpana, a teacher from a matriculation school in Pammal said. She said despite several request by the school management, the authorities have made it clear that books will be available only after ten days. “It will be difficult for all teachers to cover the portions at the scheduled time. We need to rush, once the textbooks are available”, the teachers added.

Similarly, parents also complain that the textbooks were not available in retail shops too. “We were promised by the school management that textbooks will be given well before the schools reopening. However, the promise has not been fulfilled. In addition, the textbooks have not reached in retail shops also,” S Vijayalakshmi, member of parent’s teachers association in Pallavaram said.