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Kids Wait as Bengal Reprints Textbooks

By sachiv1, Section Education
Posted on Mon May 14, 2007 at 04:13:09 AM EST

The West Bengal Government's Directorate of School Education is yet to distribute free textbooks to the 11 million-plus primary students who are expected to join their classes in mid-May. Reason: it has discovered late in the day that the books printed in 2005-end for the current session were based on the old syllabus. And the printing cost the government a whopping Rs 2.67 crore.

The syllabus of primary classes was being changed in phases over the past three years, but one section of the education department forgot to inform another about the changes that had to be incorporated.

The Government prints the textbooks throughout the year to maintain stocks. Having discovered the error in September 2006, it had to dump the entire printed stock of 6.25 million textbooks and place fresh orders.

The Comptroller & Auditor General of India, which un earthed the wasteful expenditure during its audit, sought an explanation from the Government but the Education Department had failed to give any reply.

Way back in 2003, the Government decided to change the syllabus of Classes I to V in phases. But, the CAG, after talking to district inspectors and the Directorate of School Ed ucation, discovered that requirement for new books was being determined without any proper assessment.

Officially, the district inspectors of primary education are supposed to assess the requirement and place the figures before the directorate, which then passes it on to the education department. The department places the print order.

In reality, the assessment are done by the district primary education council, which are elected bodies.

All the 17 such councils in the State have CPI(M) leaders as their chairmen. Sources said the CPI(M) controlled councils are responsible for the mess. The Government has not taken any action against the inspectors, who are its employees, as they had no role.

The CAG has pinpointed Director of School Education Dibyen Mukherjee as the person who should have organised things properly but failed to do so. Mukherjee was furious when The Indian Express contacted him to ask him about the CAG's strictures.

"Why are you asking me," Mukherjee shouted. "I am not authorised to talk to the press." With printing not expected to be over before June, primary school students will have to study the key subjects of mathematics, Bengali and English (from Class II) without any textbooks for at least two months.

(Source - Indian Express, 14/05/07)

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