Balbharati’s ‘integrated textbook’ experiment falls apart in three days

Mumbai: The ‘Integrated Textbook Scheme’, an attempt of Balbharati or the Maharashtra State Bureau of Textbook Production and Curriculum Research to introduce a single book with six subjects, has fallen apart within days. Thanks to the abysmal quality of binding, pages have come loose, leading to exasperation among students and parents. Teachers, meanwhile, have advised students to glue the pages back into the book.

The Integrated Textbook Scheme, a pilot project of the Maharashtra government, was implemented this year with the intention of streamlining the education system. The scheme entails students carrying a single book containing all subjects instead of individual textbooks for each one. In line with this, four volumes of textbooks were prepared for Marathi-medium students in Classes 1 to 8. While all four books were distributed to students, only the first part is currently being used in schools.

However, this attempt to reduce the burden on almost 60,000 students across the state has suffered a major setback on account of the poor-quality binding, which has led to pages falling out. “The first volume of the Class 7 book has 194 pages,” said a teacher from Solapur. “However, within just three days of usage, the repeated handling of the book caused the pages to come loose. Such complaints have surfaced in multiple schools, raising questions about the quality control measures employed by Balbharati.”

A teacher from Shahapur corroborated the statement, saying that some of his students were going to rebind their books. A teacher from a city-based aided school added that of the 1,000 textbooks received, four to five students had complained about the poor binding. “We have resorted to various measures to address the issue, including pasting the loose pages and attempting to bind the book with a thick rope,” said Sudam Karhade, parent of a Class 5 student from Shahapur Government School.

Balbharati has distributed over 4.5 million copies of textbooks to government and government-aided schools across the state. It has also supplied 1.5 crore copies to the open market.

Krishnakumar Patil, director of Balbharati, told HT that he had not received any complaint officially. “On the basis of the social media posts, we will check the concerns raised by teachers and parents,” he said. “If we find the quality of binding to be poor, we will give replacement textbooks to the students and take action against the printer or whoever is responsible for this.”