Nearly a month after the new school year started on April 1, students in public schools across the state are still waiting for their textbooks to arrive.
According to public school teachers, there is a shortage of textbooks for grades 1 to 10, which is having a negative impact on learning.
Meanwhile, Punjab School Education Board officials said around 1.5 crore textbooks have already been sent to district headquarters. The remaining 1.8 million textbooks will be delivered within the next few days, they said.
The board will print the books and provide them to the Ministry of Education for free distribution to students up to class 12.
PSEB chairman Satbir Bedi said while talking to HT: Two of his three plots have already been distributed to the district headquarters of the Education Department. The third one will be distributed within the next few days. ”
He said there may be some delay in the distribution of textbooks at the district headquarters level as PSEB has already sent most of the books.
PSEB officials said the distribution process began on March 9, well before the session began. They further added that it is the Ministry of Education officials who need to speed up the distribution process at the block level.
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A government school teacher in Patiala, on condition of anonymity, said, “Since we don't have new textbooks, we have to provide old textbooks to our students.However, the old textbooks are not enough and many students remain without textbooks.'' ”
School teachers said textbooks for mathematics, social science, Punjabi and home science were not distributed.
Democratic Teachers Front (DTF) president Vikram Deb said the state government, like in the past, failed to provide all the textbooks to the students before the start of the session.
“The government should timely clear all outstanding dues to PSEB and streamline the printing and distribution process by the board. “Strict action should be taken against them,” he added.
