The shortage of textbooks has affected regular classes in schools across the region. Schools in remote districts have not even received one set of textbooks for conducting classes.
“It has already been a month since the new academic year started. We have not yet been able to get any textbooks,” said Ashok Khadka, who studies in grade 10 at Pandu Secondary School in Bajhang. “My plans to work hard for the School Leaving Certificate examinations right from the beginning is being thwarted due to the shortage of textbooks.”
Students in rural districts including Bajhang, Bajura, Achham and Doti are badly hit by the textbook shortage. The shortage also persists in various tarai districts including Kailali.
The districts that do not have Sajha Publications branches are among the hard hit by the shortage. Most schools in these districts have not received textbooks for any class.
“We are finding it difficult to run classes as we have not received textbooks of any classes from grades one to eight,” said Dhruva Ram Khatri, a teacher at Meltadi Lower Secondary School, Majhigaun in Bajhang district.
He alleged that Janak Education Materials Center Limited, the sole manufacturer and supplier of school textbooks, was playing with the future of the children.
Concerned teachers say that businessmen who have taken responsibility for supplying the books are also responsible for the shortage.
Booksellers in Doti said they are also facing difficulties due to the shortage of textbooks. Amar Deuba, a bookseller in the district, said they do not yet have even a single set of textbooks for grades four to nine.
The government has announced free of cost textbooks for up to grade eight. But the irony is that students have not been able to get the books even if they pay for them.
Chief of the Regional Office of Sajha Publications in Dhangadhi, Liladhar Joshi, said they have not received even a single set of textbooks for grades seven and eight. “New textbooks have not reached us this academic session,” he said.
Meanwhile, various districts in Narayani and Lumbini Zones are also facing a shortage of textbooks, according to the Regional Office of Sajha Publications in Chitwan.
Officials said they are facing a short of science subject books for grade seven and Nepali subject books for grade eight.
Local booksellers in Narayangadh complain that they have received social studies and environment science books in far lesser quantities than the demand in the market.
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