Siddiqur Rahman Khan
The government has failed to publish the English version textbooks for secondary courses for 2009 even about a month inside the academic year.
The English version textbooks are sold to the students of the English medium schools which offer education in keeping with the board curriculum and a number of kindergartens.
‘We need to translate some textbooks from Bangla into English and translators have delayed the translations. Private printers and publishers were also reluctant to participate in the tender bid in this connection, which have delayed the printing of the books,’ said the National Curriculum and Textbook Board chairman, M Masir Uddin.
‘We have no assessment of the demand for such English version textbooks and if we print a huge number of books and keep them piled up, we will face audit objections,’ said the chairman. ‘However, some of the English version textbooks will be published soon.’
The textbook board, under the education ministry, is responsible for the renewal or modification and development of curriculum, production and distribution of primary, secondary and higher secondary textbooks.
‘I need to buy some English version books for Class VI for my son for prices much higher than what is fixed by the government although the textbooks were published in 2008,’ said a guardian.
A senior teacher of the Ideal School and College at Motijheel in Dhaka said, ‘Some students need to buy photocopied textbooks because of the shortage of English version textbooks.’
‘The government also earlier failed to publish the English version textbooks in the 2008 and 2007 in time,’ the teacher said.
Courtesy: newagebd.com
