PESHAWAR: Even a month after the start of the new academic year, the authorities have yet to provide free textbooks to thousands of students of government schools in the province.

While blaming it on the faulty need assessment, the relevant officials fear the problem will take five more months to resolve.

They told Dawn on Saturday that the schools were bound by the departmental procedure to submit demand for new books to the respective district education offices 10 months ahead of the new academic session and therefore, they’re unable to precisely assess fresh enrolments in their respective schools in the next academic year.

The officials said the denial of textbooks to schoolchildren after the start of new academic year had become a norm due to the prevalent faulty need assessment system.

Officials fear problem will take five more months to resolve

They said the district education offices received demand for textbooks from schools in June and forwarded it to the provincial secretariat of the elementary and secondary education department, which sent it to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board for printing of books.

The officials said the distribution of books to around four million students enrolled in 29,000 government schools in the province begins in April.

They said since it was a huge and time-consuming exercise, the authorities concerned struggled to distribute books to schoolchildren.

A school headmaster told Dawn that there was a 10 months gap between the book demand and supply.

He said headmasters didn’t know in June about the students to be enrolled in their respective schools in the next April.

“The headmasters provide data to the education department in June about the books to be needed in April. At that time, they know how many students would promote to next classes after the annual examinations but can’t say anything with certainty about fresh enrolments in different classes,” he said.

The school head said most headmasters hardly got free textbooks for new students.

An official involved in the book distribution insisted the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board had fulfilled the demand for Peshawar by the middle of April.

“Now, we are facing problems to fulfil additional demand for books,” he said.

The official said the district education offices floated fresh demand for new books and that the KPTB took almost five months to meet it.

He also said there were flaws in the mechanism of book distribution at the district level.

“Only two teachers, each for boys and girls schools, are deputed to distribute books to all middle, high and higher secondary schools in Peshawar,” he said.

The official said it was beyond the capacity of a single person to distribute millions of books to hundreds of schools and that despite being responsible for the distribution of books, he also taught students.

“Initially few books at the primary level were in short supply but they’re supplied by the end of April,” a senior KPTB official told Dawn.

He said the board had completed the supply of books for grade 7-12 in the first week of March.

During a visit to a government high school, a teacher said the students enrolled in the ninth grade having science subject totaled 46 but only 12 of them had so far gotten all textbooks.

He said textbooks of physics subject for grade 10 and Arabic for grade 7 were also in short supply.

The teacher said he visited the Government Higher Secondary School City No 1 several times, a books distribution centre for Peshawar, but got no textbooks.

He said he had asked students to share books with classmates but had no solution to the issue of doing homework without books.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2016