Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson to probe ‘sabotage’ in textbook fiasco

Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson will probe whether there was an attempt to sabotage the printing of school textbooks.

This was decided at the meeting convened by education minister P. K. Abdu Rabb and home minister Ramesh Chennithala with student representatives here on Friday.

During the meeting, both the education minister and home minister took divergent views on the issue. While, the home minister was of the view that there was a delay in the printing process, the education minister said there was no deliberate delay.

The printing was not stopped officially even once, Mr Rabb said. Textbooks would reach students after printing by July 20. The time has come for replacing textbooks with tablets, he said.

While students’ organisations belonging to the UDF said they were satisfied by the decision for the probe, Left student organisations said they would continue their agitation because they believed that only a judicial probe could bring out the conspiracy to sabotage printing as part of a move to hand over the work to private presses.

Mr Chennithala said that steps would be taken so that the same issue would not happen in the coming years. He announced that the chief secretary would examine the lapses as there was criticism that lack of coordination among various government departments had delayed the printing. The chief secretary has been asked to propose directions so that the delay would not happen in future.