The Crime Desk: Following the path of change, the primary and secondary education system is returning to the curriculum of 14 years ago. As a result, the total number of books printed in the new year has increased to 400 million (16 lakh), and the printing budget is also increasing.
The Ministry of Education has increased the allocation of another 550 crore taka to print a large number of these books for students from pre-primary to ninth grade in the new year. Initially, the budget was set at 1200 crore taka, but now it has increased to 1750 crore taka. This is 350 crore taka more than the cost of printing new books this year.
The National Education Board and Textbook Board (NCTB) have brought forward the issue of having more books in the 2012 academic year than the set budget as the reason for the increase in costs.
Professor AKM Riazul Hasan, chairman of the government institution responsible for printing books, informed that about 950 million more copies of books will have to be printed next year due to the return to the previous academic year.
He also said that the cost of printing new books for the first time for class 10 students has also increased.
In this regard, he said, “The cost of printing our books was initially set at 1200 crore taka. However, the cost has to be increased due to several reasons, including the increase in the number of books. Although NCTB proposed a budget increase of 783 crore taka, 550 crore taka has been approved.”
307 million 83 thousand copies of new books were printed by the end of 2023 to be handed over to students in the current 2024 academic year. A cost of 1,400 crore taka was spent for this. Accordingly, the cost will be 350 crore taka more this year.
The NCTB chairman alleged that the cost has also increased due to publishers’syndicating” and increasing the cost of printing books and submitting tenders.
The interim government wants to hand over new books to students on the first day of the new year, maintaining the continuity of the book festival of previous years. For this, NCTB wants to complete the work of printing books by December 31.
However, there has been a delay in starting printing books due to various reasons, including revisions of the new books. Many book manuscripts have not yet been finalized and reached the publishing companies. For these reasons, the officials concerned believe that students of all classes will receive books at the beginning of the year.
NTCB officials said that so far, 41 publishing companies have received the work of printing books for classes one to three. The tender for who will print books for classes four to the rest has been finalized. The tender for giving the work of giving books for class nine has also not been finalized.
However, the information about the number of publishing companies in this category has not been available.
This is the first time in the last 15 years that all books are being printed in the country.
At the same time, the army will print one crore copies of books for class ten students. They have been given this work through a direct procurement process, said the NCTB chairman.
After the Awami League government fell due to the violent mass movement of students and the public, the interim government announced on September 1, in the ninth month of the academic year, that the new curriculum was not feasible. Then it was decided to return to the 2012 national curriculum.
NCTB Chairman Professor AKM Riazul Hasan said, “The implementation of the new curriculum in class 9 was started last year by removing the division. But the Ministry of Education has said that the curriculum is not feasible. And it has also announced that the division will return. Therefore, 66.4 million new copies of books are being printed for class 10 students.”
He said, “Another reason for the increase in costs is that publishers have submitted tenders with a cost of 10 to 15 percent higher per form. Since they have done this through syndication, the costs have increased a lot. Although in previous years, many have submitted tenders with a cost of 53 percent less.”
