Schoolchildren may not get textbooks at the beginning of the academic year 2010 as a fire on Sunday damaged a huge quantity of printing papers and textbooks in warehouse of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board at Tejgaon in Dhaka. The government is supposed to print about 19 crore copies of textbooks for free distribution among students from Class I to Class IX at the beginning of the new academic session on January 1.

The textbook board is also supposed to print some textbooks for sales to the students of kindergartens and some English-medium schools. But according to officials of the textbook board Sunday’s fire might force them to delay the completion of the job at least by a month. ‘As far as I understand Sunday’s fire will not hamper the timely distribution of textbooks for primary students as a significant number of copies have already been sent to districts. But I am almost certain it will not be possible to reach secondary textbooks to schools in time,’ a board official told New Age. ‘A huge quantity of papers which bought for secondary textbook printing was damaged in Sunday’s fire. A huge quantity of books for secondary classes was also burnt,’ he said.

The education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, who visited the warehouse an hour after the fire had broken out in the morning, told newsmen despite the damage, the students will get textbooks in time. ‘I do not know the exact amount of printing papers and textbooks burnt in the fire.' The Awami League government early this year decided that secondary students would also get textbooks free from the academic year 2010. Primary students have been receiving textbooks free for a few decades. Secondary students this year have suffered a lot and they needed to wait till June to get textbooks as the government failed to make textbooks available on the market in time. The education minister on several occasions said stern action would be taken against the people involved in delaying the printing of the textbooks, but no action has been taken till date.

-New Age