Telangana students face textbook delay

Hyderabad: State Board students in Telangana might have to begin this academic year without textbooks as delays loom large. While printing of school textbooks had begun by this time last year, school curricula and the contracts process is yet to be finalised in the state this year, leading to doubts if the textbooks will be delivered on time.

The state school academic year begins in the first week of June and printers say that the process of printing and distributing textbooks takes about three months. However, with February almost over, nothing has been finalised.

Large scale modifications have been made to the school curricula in Telangana and are currently being reviewed by the CMO. “CM K. Chandrasekhar Rao has been given the drafts of the new texts. He gave them to government adviser K.V. Ramanachary for perusal. He will read the drafts and return them with further suggestions. It could take a month,” a senior education department official said.

The changes are limited only to Telugu and social sciences, while other subjects will remain unchanged. Meanwhile contracts for printing and distribution of textbooks in the state are also being finalised. As reported earlier, the existing contracts will be cancelled with the printing rights being awarded exclusively to Telangana printers.

However, printers say that even if printing of some subject textbooks is completed in advance, all books have to be distributed as a single set. Printers say that the entire process could take up to three months if initiated now. “Because there are so many printers, the government allots only one or two books to each depending on their capacity.

From Classes VI to X, there are nearly 70 different major textbooks that are to be printed,” a former printing contractor said, asking not to be named. The printer further said, “And then they have to be bound which is a laborious process and then be dispatched to the government warehouse and the market.

But many issues crop up in this process. Like the printers would say the paper quality is not good (paper is supplied by the government) which would take many days to resolve.”