New Delhi: Amid complaints of delayed and uneven textbook supply in Delhi govt schools, Delhi Bureau of Text Books has asked education officials to make school heads directly procure second-term mathematics and social science textbooks for Classes VII and VIII.
The bureau said the funding options were intended to ensure “timely procurement and distribution of the same to the students”. Teachers said revisions to NCERT textbooks had made it difficult to reuse copies from outgoing batches. A school head in west Delhi said social science textbooks had arrived only around Sept, while teachers at a north Delhi school were relying on PDFs and printouts. He said some schools got Class VII English-medium social science books only after the first term ended, while second-term books for social science and mathematics were still unavailable in some mediums. With the school year nearly over, principals have been told to buy second-term textbooks for Classes VII and VIII. If the Delhi Bureau of Text Books, which is responsible for printing and supplying them on time, cannot make them available, how will principals find them?” said education activist and lawyer Ashok Agarwal. Teachers told TOI in May that they were preparing worksheets and adapting lessons while waiting for printed textbooks. By late Oct, some schools were still relying on PDFs and printouts, and teachers said changes to the NCERT syllabus meant that books collected from outgoing batches could no longer fill the gap in some subjects.
The circular gives no deadline for schools to complete the purchases or hand the books to students. An education department official reiterated that the step had been taken to ease out the hassles and ensure that every child gets books. In a representation to the education department, education activist Ashok Agarwal had flagged shortages, particularly in English- and Urdu-medium sections. He also alleged that some students had received books while classmates in the same schools were still waiting. “This circular is a farce. The shortages date back to the start of the academic session in April.