Textbook distribution festival: Not so festive for the teachers

Every year, the end of December and the beginning of a new year is always full of frenzy for Lutfun Nahar, headmistress of a local junior high school in the capital's Agargaon area. One thing that engulfs her the entire December-January is how she is going to collect all the books that are given by the government.

"It's a 7/8 day-long process of collecting the books from the thana shikkha office (Thana Education Office) to bring them to our school premises," Nahar said.

From filling up the annual school survey forms to getting challan receipts and collecting books from warehouses for more than a week is nothing less than going into a war, as she puts it into words.  

Every year the textbooks are distributed in schools around the country on 1 January which is celebrated as the textbook festival in schools across the country. The education ministry and National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) have been able to distribute more than 500 crores of textbooks in the last 12 years. 

Recently there have been controversies regarding the quality of the paper and also the content of the books. Apart from that, there is another issue that teachers have focused on – the process of collecting books from thana education offices. This is a hectic process that they have to go through. 

How books are collected from education office

The first step is to fill up a survey form in February every year. The schools are given a survey form by the upazila education office that includes information about the school, its code no, MPO certificate, how many students the school has, etc. After the form is filled out, the officers of the education office update the data on the education portal.

According to Mohammad Rafiqul Islam, Distribution Controller of NCTB, that is how the schools get into the textbook distribution list for the following year. 

In December, the real fight begins. In the middle of the month, a team of teachers is sent to the upazila education office with the list of the required amount of textbook sets that they call 'chahida' (demand paper). 

For example, if a school has 40 students in the 2nd standard, the school team has to bring the  2nd standard's attendance sheet with them to show the education officers so that they allow them the 45 to 50 sets of books that they have asked for.

According to NCTB, this step is necessary so that teachers cannot take more books than they require. Because there have been complaints against teachers that they sell the extra copies in the market.

The teachers are then given a challan receipt, where the book list is mentioned. With the receipt, teachers go to the warehouse of books in respected upazila.

The next day a team of three to four teachers and a hired van or rickshaw get to the warehouse early in the morning with the challan receipt. There groups are formed with teachers of ten schools. The team then gets into the room where, for example, the Bangla books of the 2nd standard are kept. 

For instance, the 10 schools need three thousand copies of the 2nd standard Bangla book in total. So they get three thousand copies from the room and get them to the field to distribute among themselves.

And that way one by one every book of every standard is collected in groups. Then the books are packed and loaded on the rickshaw or van and taken to the schools. 

For seven to eight days, the teachers have to run errands like this from 7 in the morning till 5 or 6 in the evening.

Every year, NCTB works with more or less 120-150 printing presses that print the required books. According to the data provided by the upazila education officers on the education portal, the board places orders with the publishers. The number of textbooks ordered is usually based on the number of students enrolled in each class.

Once the textbooks are printed, they are shipped to the school or warehouse by the publishers or the presses. And if it is a big order from a bigger school, the textbooks are then sent to individual schools based on their orders.

Although NCTB says that they provide an amount to the upazila education offices for transporting books to the smaller schools, that is not what happens in reality. At the time we contacted the schools in Agargaon, neither the bigger schools in that area nor the smaller ones got that facility from the upazila education office in Mirpur.

It is the teachers who have to work manually for days to bring the schools before 1 January. This is an utter waste of time and energy.  

What other countries are doing

In the United States, the textbook distribution process in schools can vary depending on the school district and state regulations, but there are some common practices that are often followed, similar to what NCTB does in Bangladesh. 

The two major differences are – there the school staff are responsible for managing and tracking the textbooks, making sure they are returned at the end of the school year, and keeping them in good condition so that next year students who cannot buy books can be offered from this used lot. 

Also in recent years, some schools in the USA have begun to use digital textbooks, which can be accessed online or through an app. In these cases, the distribution process may differ slightly, with students being given access codes or logins to access their textbooks electronically.

Textbook distribution is not subsidised in the USA, rather, students have to pay for the books. But subsidised textbook distribution is available in countries like Finland, Cuba, Sri Lanka, Scotland, Kenya, Rwanda and Sudan. 

Rwanda now has a fully computerised system for managing textbooks and learning materials – the first of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa. Headteachers are in charge of ordering textbooks from an approved list, and funds are provided for these materials based on student enrollment. Publishers deliver the books to the schools at no extra cost - even off-road schools. They are paid directly by the government.

According to studies, the distribution of free textbooks helps increase retention rate, decrease dropouts, raise enrollment, improve daily attendance, increase passing rate of learners and enhance the quality of education across the globe. 

But the process can be simplified and digitalised. Rather than sending teachers to handle the piles of books with muscles, the schools can place their orders to the NCTB directly. Regulatory bodies can monitor if they are ordering books with proper data or not.