LARKANA: Students of sixth to twelfth classes in Larkana district face great difficulty following their studies in the absence of course books which Sindh government had committed to providing them free of charge.

Larkana’s district education officer (DEO) of elementary, secondary and higher secondary, Akhtar Hussain Korejo, told Dawn on Tuesday that there was shortage of free textbooks as the books of a few subjects had not yet been supplied by Sindh Text Book Board (STBB). The stock would hopefully be dispatched to Larkana within a couple of days, he said.

He admitted the textbooks for class tenth of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics were not available. A container of textbooks was mistakenly offloaded at a warehouse in Bakrani town instead of Larkana from where schools could obtain books, said the DEO.

“Instead of keeping the stock at an accessible place in district headquarters it has been stored in another subdivision making it difficult for schools to get the books,” said a teacher at Government Pilot Higher Secondary School.

Dr Nazeer Ahmed Solangi, headmaster of Government Deeni Madressah High School, disputed the DEO’s claim and said that excepting books for class seventh the textbooks of several other subjects were still missing. The textbooks of English, Arabic, Sindhi, Science and Urdu for class sixth had not yet been provided to schools, he said.

Similarly, he said, books of Islamiyaat and Urdu for class eighth, Pakistan Studies for class ninth and Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and practical workbooks of Chemistry and Physics had not yet reached the schools, he said.

Sikandar Kalhoro, a senior teacher at Government Pilot Higher Secondary School, said: “We feel ashamed before our students who cannot afford to purchase textbooks. The academic calendar started in August, 2022, but even after two months, the school is waiting for textbooks to be distributed among needy students,” he said.

Prof Allah Bakhsh Soomro, principal of the school, said that the students’ parents suspected the school was merely sitting on the books and not providing them to students.

He said that he had informed the DEO through a letter on Oct 15 about the shortage of textbooks and called for provision of books at the earliest. However, the DEO denied receiving the letter.

When the school conveyed its demand prior to the start of new academic year then what stopped the education department from doing the needful in time, complained a teacher.

Government St Joseph High Sch­ool’s headmistress said that since the course had been updated students who had somehow obtained old books to avoid lagging behind in studies were also facing problems.

There were four English medium schools in Larkana taluka alone which had not yet received free textbooks, said a source in the education department.

Government Girls Degree College’s principal Prof Irshad Abbasi said that she had neither sought free books nor the department had provided the college any book yet.

An official in DEO’s office said that since two years the department had discontinued the practice of sending free textbooks to colleges.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2022