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Students to face Text Books dilemma this year too
Karachi, Jan 05, 2008: The school-going students would face the same dilemma this year
too with regard to the books as it would not be printed on time as the Education
Department of Sindh has seized the accounts of the Sindh Text Book Board (STBB)
with immediate effect, the sources in the department told this correspondent.
The ultimate sufferer of this action of the government of Sindh would be
the students, who were now in the habit of this delaying tactics.
The
printing process was eventually stopped with all the contracts awarded to the
private publishing companies were cancelled. The sources in the department
confided that reason behind this drastic action was taken to probe into the
affairs of burning of STBB head-office at Jamshoro in the recent wave of
violence that gripped the entire country following the assassination of Pakistan
People's Party (PPP) Chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, on December 27,
2007.
The Jamshoro STBB head-office was set ablaze by some miscreants on
December 29, 2007 as reported which caused huge amount of loss, including all
records were burnt, the office was completely smashed.
Secondly it was
said that the education department had ordered an inquiry into the affair due to
which functioning of the head-office was at a standstill and till the inquiry
was completed it would remain closed, thus affecting the entire process of
publishing and printing of books for the new academic session, the sources said.
Another major setback that had to be faced by the students was this year
too the meteorological department had predicted heavy rains that would also
affect the process. With only three months left for the new academic session the
printing of books and awarding contracts to the private publishers and
procurement of papers needs three to four months. It seemed difficult for the
department to bring books in the market on time, said an insider.
About
3.5 million books were printed with the same amount which was distributed to the
government school students of class I till Matric free of cost under Education
for All Programme.
The cost of these books in total is Rs350 million and
the same amount was allocated to the private printers and publishers. It must
also be mentioned here that as the printing machines of STBB were out of order,
the contract of printing and publishing books was awarded to the private
contractors.
It is also to be noted that the care-taker education
minister had revised the new academic session to the old one starting from April
1. For the past two years, the session was starting from August 1.
All
this lengthy process from approval of books, procurement of paper to publishing,
printing and distribution and proofing needs five to six months time, while all
this process is yet not started.
Chairman STBB, Shamsuddin Solangi, who
was appointed for one year, was transferred from the Federal Government Science
and Technology Department, by the then government has no experience of printing
and publishing. Furthermore his term is expiring in the month of March, 2008. The News
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