The Education and Health Committee of the House of Representatives has again directed the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to bring the Federal Education Act into the parliament as soon as possible and to prevent the shortage of school textbooks.
The directive was given by Jaipuri Gharti after discussions with Education Minister Devendra Poudel, Secretary to the Ministry Yadav Koirala and Managing Director of Janak Shiksha Samagri Kendra Limited Anil Jha. The members of the committee had drawn the serious attention of the government and the concerned officials regarding the shortage of textbooks at the school level even though two months have passed since the start academic session.
Earlier, in the meeting of Jestha 11, the committee had advised and instructed to produce and distribute textbooks in a timely manner by coordinating with the federal, state and local governments to solve the problem of shortage of textbooks. Currently, the responsibility of printing textbooks for classes 1 to 3 was given to the private press and classes 4 to 10 were given to Janak Shiksha Samagri Kendra Limited.
During the meeting, Minister Poudel informed that he has been following up every day at the Janak Shiksha Samagri Kendra to make sure the free textbooks reach all the students. He said that even though the private sector printers had asked for permission to print textbooks for all the classes, the centre was given the main responsibility as it was appropriate to give work of completing the demands of shortage of textbooks to the government-owned Janak Shiksha Samagri by adding machines.
Managing Director of Janak Shiksha Samagri Jha informed that the demand for textbooks exceeded the target and production was delayed due to unavailability of printing paper in time and now five per cent of the target textbooks are yet to be printed.
