The new academic year, after a two-month-long summer vacation, is supposed to be a refreshed beginning with new brown covered books, probably those with quick response (QR) codes, and a pair of swanky new uniform for the students in the State-run schools across the State.
But in contrast to such expectations, students of several schools relied on used textbooks or nothing to follow lessons taught in the classrooms. Not just in the initial days, but even nearly two months after the classwork began, many government school students in the State are yearning for textbooks and uniforms.
While uniforms are still far cry, a majority of them got textbooks only in the recent weeks.
“Last year we did not get EVS (Environmental Studies) textbooks for Class V. Students passed the academic year without even knowing the face of a subject’s textbook. How can we even prepare notes without a text?” laments headmistress of a primary municipal school that has received not more than 60% textbooks this year.
Many school headmasters and teachers in the State are facing a similar situation owing to prolonged delay in the distribution of textbooks to students. Some of the schools have collected books from the outgoing students and gave them to the new students.
The fact that there are Text Book Depots which are yet to distribute many titles to Mandal Education Officers (MEO) as on Thursday stands testimony to the inordinate delay in distribution by the Department of School Education. Many of the depots that served all the mandals with sufficient textbook achieved it only recently.
Across the State, there are about 36.99 lakh students studying in over 46,000 schools and 2.2 crore textbooks are required. When contacted, an official of the Department of School Education claimed that 100% distribution was achieved, but refused to share further details.
A burden on school heads
To cover up the delay in printing of textbooks at over 80 printing presses in the State, the department had been disbursing books as and when printing is over. This has forced school heads to visit the offices of MEOs and Deputy Education Officers (DyEO) to collect the books.
“Our students now have all the required textbooks. But the problem was having to visit the office of DyEO several times in a month to collect the books. Sometimes we had to visit twice to get same title books,” said K. Nagaraju, headmaster of Boyapati Siva Rama Krishna Municipal High School in Vijayawada.
“In rural areas, this has become a huge burden to the headmasters. For every visit to the MEO office in mandal headquarters, we had spend hundreds of rupees for transportation charges out of our pockets. The department officials should ensure that textbooks are delivered at the schools or headmasters are given allowances covering the transport charges,” S. Ramakrishna, president of Municipal Teachers Federation, said.
On the other hand, only about 30 per cent of the students got their new uniforms in the State, according to teachers unions.
“A good number of schools in Guntur and Anantapur districts received school uniforms, while only 20 to 30 per cent of them in other districts got them. It seems stitching of the uniforms has just begun, and it might take more time for all the students to get the new uniforms,” Federation of AP Teachers’ Associations chairman P. Babu Reddy said.
For info graphic
Apps for accountability of every textbook
The Department of School Education has introduced a first of its kind authentication and accountability system for textbook distribution. Two Android applications have been developed with which every phase of textbook distribution from the Mandal Education Officers and every single student is accounted for and authenticated with biometric data. But the system has not been up to the mark owing to to various technical reasons.
Student Textbook App
Headmasters install the application on their tabs
Before distributing books to each student, his or her thumb impression or Iris will be scanned and uploaded for Aadhaar verification
After verification, books are handed over to the student and photograph of the student receiving them is uploaded
If the student’s district in Aadhaar does not match with the school’s district, authentication cannot be done
Many authentications have failed owing to lack of bandwidth and other technical glitches in the software
The app avoids duplicity and subsequent misuse of the textbooks. Also, no headmaster could claim books in the name of students who dropped out of the school
Teacher Textbook App
Headmasters will upload and verify the distribution details collected on the Student Textbook App
Teachers complain of inordinate delay in distribution process due to the apps
Each entry takes more than 15 minutes
Textbooks status at depots (as on Thursday)
Source: Textbook Depots
Depots receive less than the net requirement as all of they redistribute the last year’s textbooks to meet the total requirement
It takes more than a week for the books to reach schools
Distribution flow
Printing press
All textbooks are printed at private presses selected through the tendering process
District level Textbook depots
Every depot was having few of last year’s textbooks. Receives new textbooks from printers
Mandal Education Officers or Deputy Education Officers
Depots transport textbooks to these offices via RTC buses.
Headmasters
Headmasters personally visit respective MEO or DEO office and collect books. Every headmaster has to visit several times to get all books
Students
Students receive books from headmasters
