Textbooks for the new academic year will be ready and distributed before schools reopen, Minister for School Education C.Ve. Shanmugam said on Wednesday.
'Samacheer Kalvi'
Talking to reporters after his first meeting with heads of various departments on the Directorate of Public Instruction (DPI) campus here, Mr. Shanmugam skirted questions related to ‘Samacheer Kalvi'.
He, however, promised that the government would ensure that parents, children and schools would have no reason to complain.
To questions on the issue of the fee structure and when it would be announced, he said that once the Private Schools' Fee Determination Committee sent the report, a decision would be taken.
The Minister did not comment on how soon the final fee structure of schools that had appealed would be ready, but added that if need be he would meet representatives of private school managements.
Although Mr. Shanmugam remained non-committal about ‘Samacheer Kalvi', which was proposed to be extended across from classes I to X from the coming academic year, sources said that the common syllabus was here to stay, at least for now. With less than two weeks to go for the schools to reopen, officials say it is going to be a challenge to ensure that all books are printed and distributed.
For instance, the Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation has only received 95 CDs of minority languages such as Urdu, Arabic, Telugu and Malayalam. This is from the total of 132 CDs, says an official. Nearly 62 per cent of the textbooks of classes I to X (Tamil and English medium) is ready.
