Siddiqur Rahman Khan
The sales of primary textbooks meant for free distribution are rampant across the country, guardians and market sources said.
The students from Classes I to V of government, non-government and community primary schools and ibtedayi madrassahs are scheduled to get the books in the first week of January.
Market sources said guardians of students studying in NGO-run schools and unauthorised kindergartens are buying the textbooks as the students of such schools are not entitled to get the textbooks free.
Some guardians need to buy fresh textbooks for their children as they are reluctant to read used textbooks distributed by the government.
The government provides every academic year each of the students with a half of the books recycled to save on resources.
According to reports reaching from Sylhet, Rajshahi, Khulna and Barisal, guardians need to buy textbooks as the books meant for free distribution have not reached the schools.
Some publishers and district primary education officials as well as traders in the city are responsible for sending the books to markets, sources in the publishing industry said.
The district primary education officers of Nilphamari have reportedly sold about 73,000 copies of textbooks to the market in the first week of January.
At Nilkhet and Banglabazar book markets in Dhaka, a set of six books for Class V sells for Tk 260, for Class IV for Tk 250 and for Class III for Tk 200. For a set of books for Class I and II, people need to pay between Tk 130 and Tk 150.
The New Age correspondents in Sylhet and Rajshahi said each set of the textbooks from Class I to V sold for prices between Tk 50 and Tk 250.
‘As the books are not for sale, we need to pay higher prices to collect them with the help of a powerful syndicate,’ a seller at Nilkhet said.
‘We also face law enforcers and sell the book amid risks,’ he said. ‘Plainclothes policemen arrested some shop owners as they were selling the textbooks in 2005 and 2006.’
The education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, on Thursday told New Age he had heard of some such stray incidents and asked the authorities concerned to take stern action against the criminals.
AFM Rezaul Kabir, headmaster of the Zindabazar Government Primary School in Sylhet, on Thursday told New Age, ‘The copies of the books on some subjects are yet to reach us.’
Jamir Ali, a union council member of Dakshin Surma, said he had bought a set of textbooks for Class III from a shop at Kudrat Ullah Market for Tk 170.
‘I have been forced to buy a new set of textbooks as my son refused to read the used books, with pages torn and defaced, supplied by the school authorities,’ he said.
There are more than 1.62 crore students in 80,401 schools which offer only primary schooling, according to government statistics.
Every academic year, the government distributes about seven crore textbooks free among the students of certain categories.
The students are required to return all their textbooks to the school on completion of their courses.
The government publishes some textbooks for sales to the students of kindergarten and English medium schools, which are not entitled to get textbooks free. The colour of the covers of such textbooks is different from those of the books meant for free distribution.
Courtesy: newagebd.com
