Three weeks after the commencement of classes, students of Government and Government-aided schools in the district are still waiting for the free notebooks announced in the State Budget 2012-13.
According to principals, teachers’ associations and school managements, they had not received any information from the Education Department regarding the distribution of notebooks.
As per the budget, a sum of Rs. 150 crore was allotted for providing free notebooks to students of Standard I-X.
“The students have been asked to use rough notebooks till they are provided with the new ones,” said D. Krishnaveni, head mistress, Kadri Mills Higher Secondary School. Whereas, S. Rajamani, head mistress, of Government Higher Secondary School, Ganapathy, said that many of the students had already bought notebooks. “They’ll need around 3-4 notebooks for one subject and only limited number of notebooks would be allotted. So they could use the books when the Government distributes them,” she said.
According to sources, the District Education Department has not received any information on the distribution of notebooks from the State authorities.
But many teachers said that the Government should take steps to distribute books immediately as it would affect the students who counted on free books, especially those from the economically weaker sections.
According to K. Krishnaraj, general secretary, Tamil Nadu Nursery, Primary, Matriculation and Higher Secondary Schools Welfare Association, the aided-school managements are not provided with any information about the distribution of free notebooks. Whereas many schools said that the free books were distributed only for students belonging to SC/ST categories.
As per the budget allocations, Rs. 136.5 crore was set aside for providing special education kits including school bags, geometry boxes, colour pencils and atlases while Rs. 100 crore was to provide free footwear to 81 lakh students in the State. An amount of Rs. 329.89 crore was allocated to provide uniforms for 48.63 lakh students.
