A Teacher :
A number of positive and encouraging things have occurred in the field of education in our country. It started receiving importance from the governments for the last several years. And the introduction of distributing textbooks free of cost since 2010 has added another dimension in this field (?) in one sense though it has not been aligned with saving education from its slanting trend. We try to compare free book distribution phenomenon with other countries of the world and claim ourselves to be unique in this respect. Of course, the malaise lying in this sector doesn’t cannot be covered by the petals of success through free distribution of books. Distributing books free of cost from grade one to ten has miserably failed to curb the flow of private tuition which is considered to be one of the greatest national diseases in this sector it has engulfed the whole educational scenario. Parents are to spend every month an amount on private coaching which far surpasses the cost of textbooks students get from the government. They need to buy other helping books as well to make good results as the textbooks cannot cater to the needs of the students. Faulty assessment system though we term it ‘creative questions’ has created questions whether it can really assess the competency of the students. Moreover, if these textbooks could have attracted the learners, we would have enjoyed some peace of mind.
Let us see some of the discrepancies and faults happened to these free textbooks. The Bengali book of class two shows its cover okay but in the content list till ‘ Amader Bondhura’ the pages from class three have been attached. Again, the pages from class two have been added. The science book of class four sees no pages till 28 and it begins from the page 29. In the mathematics book of class five from beginning to page 12 are missing. The book beings from page 13.the Islamic and Moral education book witnesses very haphazard pages from 9 to 104. And the ‘ Saptabarna’ of class seven witnesses the poems of Ahsan Habib named ‘ Mela’ and May Diner Kobiti’ of Mamunur Rahsid have been printed twice. Some copies of Saptabarna see the double printing of ‘ Mallodan’ by Ranesh Das Gupta. Also the poem ‘ Ananda ‘ by Sukumar Roy has been attached twice. The English book of class eight misses the pages from 65 to 72. The ‘ Shaosthokonika’ of this class does not see the content page. Some chapters happen double in this book also. ‘Ananda path’ sees the pages at sixes and seven in several places.
All the books have been printed with very low quality paper which is never eye-soothing and student friendly. The printing is hazy. Many pictures cannot be identified, many pictures’ ink has faded and dried up. The pictures of individuals cannot be identified. The sewing and attaching is very loose. Continental BD Limited is the designated organization to look into the matter of quality book and quality paper. They are supposed to collect samples from 508 upazillas. They have already collected samples from 100 upziallas which have given us this dismal picture. What is in store for us when they will collect more samples can easily be guessed. They have already made it known to NCTB but no action has yet been taken. Their duty is to let the NCTB know as they don’t have any authority or power to take any action against the defaulters and wrongdoers. One printing and publishing owner said, “At the time of taking the work the owners of the paper mills increased the price of paper by 30 percent. So, we could not collect the quality paper and even could not collect the paper on time. So, its effect can be on the quality of the books”.
The chairman of Bangladesh Printing Industry said, “To distribute the books timely works were done very quickly and haphazardly which may affect the quality of the books. The owners of paper mills made the printers hostage and increased the price of paper.” Huge amount of paper was needed this year as the government disbursed more than 33 million books this year (2016). Can we actually manage this huge load with our existing manpower and other utility services available? To distribute these huge amount of books quality has been seriously ignored not only this year, it has become a constant affair since its inception.
Another malaise also developed in this process. Some newspapers have flashed the news that field officials in several areas collected money from the students in exchange of giving free textbooks.
Adding to this fact, books are necessary for the researchers, educators, guardians and some organizations working for education cannot have books easily. What will happen to them? I myself could not collect any books even talking to the chairman of NCTB. How people working for education will give feedback and work without getting the textbooks? General rules don’t cover to give books to these professionals. Does this rationing system talk about free flow of education? Books and other educational items should be available everywhere at a low price. We are not a socialist country, the buying capacity of the people has increased than before as the government has declared we are going to be in the line of middle income country. In this situation free distribution of books among the learners irrespective of urban and rural, solvent and insolvent students ignoring the quality may not give us very good signal though we feel complacent through this work.
The note and guide books have become constant companions of our students as the textbooks cannot draw their attention either by their face value or content. Besides, trained and real creative teachers can make any sort of textbooks enjoyable and effective in the classroom but our reality does not show this picture.
And the existing textbooks cannot satisfy the thirst and desired amount of outcome which has created alternatives for the students and even many teachers to use note and guide books for teaching learning process. The main objective of education is to make the learners creative and value driven. The existence of note and guide books contradicts this idea. We want to see learner friendly and eye-catching textbooks with creative items and enjoyable contents and sound assessment system so that our future leaders can lead the country towards a safe goal.
