New textbooks unavailable for over 11 lakh students in Uttarakhand schools

New textbooks under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 remain unavailable for over 11 lakh students from Class 1 to 12 in public schools of Uttarakhand.

At present, Uttarakhand has over 16,500 public schools.

The education department said the curriculum has been revised under NEP and the students still don’t have access to books due to a delay in their printing process.

Banshidhar Tiwari, director, school education, said, “We will start distributing books among students from Class 1 to 8 depending on supply availability. The books for Class 9 to 12 are still being printed.”

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He said, “Students didn’t get textbooks due to delay in printing. We are also providing free books to government-aided private schools from this session.”

It further claimed that students from Class 1 to 8 will start receiving books from April 26 on the basis of supply availability.

However, there is no clarity on when the distribution of books among students from Class 9 to 12 will begin.

Until the new books are available, the books from older students are being shared with the students to address the problem, the official said.

Tiwari added, “It’s like that students don’t have textbooks at all. The older students who qualified for further classes are sharing the books with new students.”

In July last year, Uttarakhand became the first state across the country to implement the NEP 2020 in its original form.

The NEP aims to give due importance to value-based education rooted in Indian culture and ancient values to ensure wholesome personality development, officials said.

In October, the state extended the NEP to higher education on Sunday.

The state government has fixed a target to fully implement the new education policy in the state by 2030.