Textbook crunch

Elementary school children, mostly in remote parts of the country, are facing acute shortage of textbooks just two months before the schools reopen for the new academic year. According to the Ministry of Education (MoE), there is already a shortage of around 1.2 million textbooks this academic session. The crisis has come to stay due to lack of paper rolls required to print the textbooks. It will further deepen as Janak Education Material Centre (JEMC), a government undertaking for printing textbooks, is likely to run out of its stock of paper rolls from early next week, worsening the shortage of schoolbooks. The printing may completely halt from Monday as JEMC has said it is left with just eight metric tons of paper rolls in total whereas it is using six metric tons of rolls everyday for printing.



The MoE and the JEMC have entered into a public brawl blaming each other for the crisis. The JEMC has publicly stated that the current textbook crisis was largely triggered by the MoE´s decision to scrap a new tender process for buying more papers. The MoE, on its part, has flayed the JEMC management for creating artificial shortage and has suspected possible irregularities in the tender. Education minister Ganga Lal Tuladhar even said that the executive committee of JEMC was authorized to buy 650 metric tons of paper rolls after the government decision to provide free-of-cost textbooks up to grade 10 increased the overall demand. But the Letter of Credence (LC) was opened for buying just 200 metric tons of paper only.



This is a recurrent problem. Year after year the country is faced with massive textbook shortage. And each year last minute blame games and decisions lead to some sort of relief. This time around too, after few days of bickering, the MoE has given a nod to JEMC to purchase more paper rolls, which might soon ease the tension. But the question is: Why cannot the government and the bureaucracy find a lasting solution to this problem that affects millions of students across the country? The answer should be sought in efficiency of government agencies and monitoring effort by the government. Instead of engaging in blame games, the MoE must ensure that a smooth process of delivery is ensured by the JEMC. After all JEMC is a state agency with representatives from the ministry itself. The two must cooperate and work to put in place an effective and well-organized system free of malpractices. The last-minute decision-making attitude that has now come to stay in our governance will jeopardize the entire functioning of the state. We must learn to put in place a robust system to avoid landing in ridiculous crisis like these.

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