As exams approach, private schools still await textbooks

With exams only a month away, students in many private schools teaching state syllabus are still using photocopies of textbooks as they have not received the books for this academic year.

“For many classes, even now, we have not received Part I textbooks. When we ask the department, they say the distribution is completed. But our students don’t have any study material to read at home,”  said Shashi Kumar D, general secretary of the Associated Managements of Private Unaided English-medium Schools in Karnataka (KAMS).

Hindi and Kannada language textbooks for primary classes, Class IX Part II Social Science and Mathematics textbooks are some of those which member schools have not received.

M A Khan, secretary of the Bangalore South District High School Headmasters Association, said schools have received most of the Part I textbooks for core subjects, but many schools have not got Part II.

“This is okay for lower classes where a semester system is followed. But class VIII, IX and X have an annual exam, so we have to teach lessons from both Part I and II from the beginning of the year,” he said. For example, in the social science textbook, there are lessons in history, geography and economics, which are distributed between the two books.

Commissioner for Public Instruction (CPI) Sowjanya said there is sufficient stock of books in the godowns under each Block Education Officer (BEO). “I have confirmation from the Textbook Society that there is sufficient stock in the godowns. Schools have to go to the office of the BEO to collect it. If they have not given proper indent, the department cannot be blamed,” she said.

However, school managements say that they returned from several visits to the godowns empty-handed. “If we ask for 50 books, we get only 25 or 30 from the godown. BEOs have the details of those books which have not been collected by schools, but they do not inform us when there is stock,” said Khan.