The New Nation - Internet Edition

ACCORDING to recent media reports, around 3.5 lakh primary schoolteachers across the country do not know what to teach their students as they could not be provided with manuals of the newly introduced textbooks in time. Under the new primary education curriculum, the government introduced new textbooks for the students from Class I to Class V between 2003 and 2006 academic years. The government was supposed to print and supply more than one crore copies of teachers' manuals much before they started teaching the lessons in new textbooks.

The primary schoolteachers were supposed to get 'such manuals with the textbooks before the start of classes' as per the new curriculum. The teachers are facing problems with new chapters, especially in Mathematics and English with the new type of communicative approach. Unless the teachers get manuals, it would be difficult for them to properly teach the students. The primary education adviser told the media that they have to depend on the supply of paper from the state-owned Karnaphuli Paper Mills to meet the shortage of paper that delayed the printing of teachers' manuals.

According to government statistics, more than 1.62 crore students enrolled at 80,401 primary schools and their equivalent institutions this year. There are more than 3.5 lakh teachers in these primary schools. The National Curriculum and Textbook Board has assured that it would start printing the manuals as soon as it received paper. Official sources could not say specifically when the manuals would reach the teachers though the year is almost running out. While drafts of manuals for classes III to V have reportedly been scrutinised but publication of those for Classes I and II are reported to be 'absolutely uncertain'.