Sumana Shrestha, the Minister of Education, Science, and Technology, has launched an initiative to guarantee the timely provision of textbooks to students.
During an inspection at the Janak Education Material Center Limited in SanoThimi, Bhaktapur, Minister Shrestha stressed the importance of ensuring an adequate supply of textbooks for all subjects and classes. He obtained updates on the status of book printing and distribution from the center and evaluated the printing facilities.
Anil Kumar Jha, the center's management director, briefed the minister on the progress of book printing and distribution, as well as the related processes. Minister Shrestha emphasized the necessity for textbooks to be printed and distributed punctually to students.
The director assured the minister of the center's commitment to commence the distribution campaign simultaneously with its initiation, ensuring immediate provision of textbooks to students. He disclosed that 95% of textbook printing has been completed, and the remaining 5% will be printed by 15 Chaitra. Distribution is scheduled to commence shortly after 15 Chaitra 2080, ensuring availability of textbooks for all classes.
Managing Director Jha revealed that the center is tasked with printing 1 crore 75 lakh textbooks for the upcoming academic session, with 1 crore 57 lakh already printed and the remaining 18 lakh to be printed and distributed within 15 days. The center has been entrusted with the responsibility of printing textbooks for classes 5 to 12 for the upcoming academic session 2081. Unlike the previous academic session 2080, where the center was assigned to print books for classes 6 to 12 and ensure their distribution by the start of the academic session, this year, the government has tasked the center with printing books from class 5 onwards.
The director emphasized that there should be no shortage of textbooks for any class this year, unlike the previous year (2079), and textbooks will be provided in sets as before. He stated, "We have been printing 100,000 textbooks daily around the clock, and the printing process is ongoing. The printed books will be stored in regional warehouses of provincial offices. Similar to last year, distribution will commence in Chaitra, ensuring timely delivery of textbooks to students."
This year, 2080, the Ministry of Education has delegated the responsibility of printing and distributing textbooks for classes 1 to 4 to private sector. The management director mentioned that although they had requested the responsibility of printing textbooks for classes 1 to 4 from the government, they were assigned the responsibility for class 5. He added that the government will assign them the responsibility of printing textbooks for classes 1 to 5 in the upcoming year, 2081.
