Primary and secondary students attending schools this morning will return home happy with a set of new textbooks.
Today starts the free distribution of 26,17,74,606 copies of textbooks among some 3,68,86,172 students of primary and secondary grades across the country.
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid will open the much-awaited Textbook
Festival Day by giving out books to students at Residential Model School and College in the capital around 11:00am.
The distribution will continue for seven days, say officials of the education ministry, which has been observing the festival on January 1 since 2011.
Primary and Mass Education Minister Afsarul Ameen will mark the day by handing out books at Kalachandpur Government Primary School in the capital's Gulshan.
The government decided on free distribution in 2009 against a backdrop of textbook crisis. It has been distributing books to both primary and secondary students at the very beginning of academic sessions since 2010.
Previously, only primary students were provided with free textbooks and the task used to be completed in the first quarter of an academic session.
This year, the number of textbooks distributed since 2010 will stand at 92 crore.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday formally
started the distribution programme by giving textbooks to students of different classes at Gono Bhaban in the capital.
According to the officials of National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB), all the copies have been delivered to schools in every upazila.
Of the textbooks, 10.78 crore copies are for 2.31 crore primary students and 11.47 crore for 8.55 crore secondary students. The rest are for students of ebtedai, dakhil, SSC vocational and dakhil vocational.
All the textbooks of primary and secondary grades will also be available on the government's e-books website (www.ebook.gov.bd) and that of the NCTB (www.nctb.gov.bd).
After 17 years, the government has this time made major modifications to 111 textbooks of class I-K in line with the recommendations of national education policy of2010.
Primary level textbooks have been printed in four colours through an internationaltender.