School students in Bangladesh got disappointed as they came across mistakes in some of the textbooks this year.
National Curriculum and Textbook Board officials said that the amendments would be uploaded on its website and sent to the educational institutions by the end of this month.
Meanwhile, five days into 2023, many students are yet to receive free textbooks due to delays in printing.
Till Wednesday, at least 28 per cent of the primary and 25 per cent of the secondary students did not obtain their textbooks, said NCTB officials.
In 2023, according to the NCTB, 33,91,12,300 textbooks will be distributed among more than four crore pre-primary, primary, secondary, secondary vocational, ebtedayee, dakhil vocational, ethnic minority and visually challenged students across the country.
Of the total textbooks, over 23.8 crore are for the secondary students while over 9.6 crore are for the primary children.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on December 31 inaugurated the free textbook distribution programme for the academic year 2023 while the National Textbook Festival was celebrated across the country on January 1.
The classroom teaching in many educational institutions around the country began on January 1 while many others would start their classes gradually within this month.
Students, in the meantime, raised questions about wrong information, some of it gross, contained in some of the books.
In the book ‘History of Bangladesh and World Civilisation’ for Class IX and X, it was written on the page 200 that ‘Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman took oath as the prime minister from Justice Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem on January 12, 1972. The same day, Justice Abu Sayeed Chowdhury was appointed as the president.’
But as is the history, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman took oath as the country’s prime minister on January 12, 1972 from Justice Abu Sayeed Chowdhury who had already been appointed as the country’s president.
The same book, on the page 181, says that ‘The Pakistan army engaged in torture, genocide and destruction between March 26 and December 16 across Bangladesh.’
The Pakistan army actually started the genocide in Bangladesh on the night of March 25, 1971.
NCTB member for textbooks Professor Lutfur Rahman said that they would upload the corrections to the mistakes in the textbooks on the board’s website and also send the amendments to the educational institutions by the end of January.
Meanwhile, a senior NCTB official on Thursday said that some 75 per cent of the secondary and 72 per cent of the primary textbooks were sent to different upazilas for distribution till Wednesday.
Earlier, on December 31, NCTB chairman Md Farhadul Islam told New Age that all primary and secondary students would get the full sets of textbooks by January 15.
He blamed the paper crisis and the delays in floating tenders and issuing work orders as reasons for failing to print all the books in time.
Bangladesh Printing Industry Association president Shaheed Serniabat and Textbook Printing and Marketing Association of Bangladesh president Tofayel Khan earlier told New Age that bureaucratic red tape and a shortage of raw materials for the book production were the reasons behind the delay in printing.
The government distributed 434.45 crore free textbooks for students from pre-primary to secondary levels between 2010 and 2023.
In 2022, total 34.7 crore textbooks were distributed to students across the country.
