Unlike last year, students will receive their school textbooks well ahead of the new academic year. The Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation will make class X textbooks available from April 26, the School Education Department has said.
Textbooks will be dispatched to institutions across all districts. The books, to be distributed free of cost to students going to government and aided schools, will be sent to designated centres directly from the printing press.
Once the results of the class IX examinations are declared, heads of schools will distribute textbooks to students. Chief educational officers have been asked to oversee the process.
Students can buy texts
Additionally, class X students of matriculation schools, who may wish to purchase textbooks directly from the government, can do so at the Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation office on the DPI premises in Chennai, or at any of the 22 block-level offices in Tamil Nadu, where the books are to be sold. Inspectors of matriculation schools will help coordinate the process, according to a press release from the School Education Department.
Students will have the choice of buying textbooks for select subjects, or the entire set. The Tamil, English, mathematics, science and social science textbooks will cost Rs. 70 each.
Enough books this year
In Chennai, all the books for matriculation schools will be housed in a centrally-located school, for distribution to other schools. The book godowns will function during weekends, too. An adequate number of textbooks have been printed this year, sources said.
This reassurance is quite a contrast to the delay in textbooks reaching students last year. Due to the controversy around the issue of uniform syllabus last year, textbooks, in most cases, reached schools only three months after schools reopened.
The textbooks are also available online. For details, visit: www.textbookcorp.tn.nic.in.
