LAHORE: Almost half of the academic year is set to go to waste this year for thousands of school students because of the Punjab School Education Department’s failure to complete the free textbook distribution.
According to local media, the academic year started about four months back, and now the schools are closed for two and a half months of long summer holidays.
According to sources, the affected school students include many of those studying in Workers Welfare Fund (WWF) schools that are facing a shortage of around 40,000 textbooks in the province.
The Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board is responsible for the free distribution of the textbooks after publication. However, many students didn’t receive the books before the vacations began.
The source said such a prolonged delay had happened for the first time in the Punjab.
They said the Punjab board had been assigned to print around 80 million textbooks for the ongoing school year. It couldn’t deliver the books by the scheduled date of March 31 because their printing had not been completed.
Thus, while school students of private schools are engaged in homework and summer camps, thousands of pupils of government institutions are wasting their time due to the non-availability of books.
An official of the Punjab Textbook Board explained while speaking to The Express Tribune that there had been several problems, including an increase in paper cost and delay in payment to the publishers.
He said, “We did our best to overcome the issues and have recently completed printing the books and handed them over to the school education department.”
