The breakdown in the distribution of textbooks in government schools across Ernakulam district is giving sleepless nights to students and parents.
Even as the first term is coming to an end, with only a few days left for the examinations, school managements remain clueless on how to resolve the serious issue. The shortage of textbooks has affected students from classes V to X in the English medium.
Hopes of streamlining the distribution have faded as textbooks meant for schools in Ernakulam are lying in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam, Thrissur and Kozhikode districts. A senior official of the Education Department confirmed to The Hindu that chances of students getting textbooks before the first-term examinations were remote.
Curiously, the officials of the district education department have been asked from the top to spend money from their pockets and travel to the other districts to procure the textbooks lying at the distribution centres there. The cost for the travel and other related expenses would be reimbursed later.
Education officials in the district are planning to utilise the transport facilities owned by schools in the district to bring back the textbooks.
A worried parent pointed out that only a few students could manage their studies using old textbooks while the majority continued to remain in the dark without even a single textbook in their schoolbags.
“We have been told that the district education officials are helpless as they have no money to bring back the textbooks lying in the outside districts,” she said. Parents went to the extent of suggesting to a few heads of institutions that they were ready to foot the bills incurred by the district education officials for travelling to other districts to collect the textbooks lying in distribution centres there.
A senior teacher of maths said that the teaching process has turned difficult without the availability of textbooks. “We are not able to complete the portions on time,” he said. However, senior officials of the Directorate of Public Instruction played down the issue by saying that “It is not confined to Ernakulam alone but remains a perennial issue in all districts”. They also blamed the Kerala Books and Publication Society for the inordinate delay in printing the textbooks for various classes.
