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No textbooks for new academic session
Karachi, July 24: The uncertainty perpetually looming around the Sindh Education Department, which
has hit a new high as of late, is extremely regrettable and will adversely
affect the academic activities of hundreds of thousands of students. Of all the
inefficiency that characterises the department, reports that school children
will not have access to text books when the academic session starts on August 9,
is most alarming – especially since it seems to happen every year, implying that
the textbook dispensing authorities don't learn a lesson from the past. As
expected, with the problem becoming increasingly apparent, the department and
the Sindh Text Book Board (STBB), which is responsible for the printing of the
texts, are pointing fingers at one another. Various reasons are now being cited
for such problems, including the most recent crisis in the department after its
bifurcation by the Sindh chief minister last month for reasons that remain
officially unstated. Reportedly, the move was made due to political
considerations, which also involves the desire to control the recruitment of new
teachers, something that has the potential to be quite lucrative for the
appointing authority.
Whoever is to blame in this situation, one thing is
for sure that it is condemnable that school-going children, already few in
number relative to the demography, are paying for problems that are essentially
political and bureaucratic in nature. Such instances do nothing but further
erode the system of education, which is already a much ignored sector across the
country. Moreover, this latest problem is not novel in any way and is something
that has unfortunately marked the lacklustre education policy of government
after government, each of which has promised greater emphasis on education.
There is an urgent need to address this problem which is directly related to the
future of this nation. The news
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