The Hindu : Kerala News : Printing of textbooks to be over by June 20

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 06, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Printing of textbooks to be over by June 20

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM. JUNE 5. The printing of the new version of the textbooks for standards four and five in the State's schools would be completed by June 20. Seventy per cent of the printing has been completed, a pressnote issued by the Education Minister's office quoted the Minister as saying.

The textbooks for standard ten were made available to all the depots in the second week of April itself. This is for the first time that the new version of the textbooks reached the schools during the summer holidays. An efficient distribution system has been put in place this year for the disbursal of the new textbooks.

Orders have been given to private printing facilities subject to the decision of the High Court. Such orders have been given after ensuring that the maximum possible orders were given to government presses. These orders have been given to six private presses whose bids were the lowest, as per the suggestion of the departmental purchase committee and store purchase rules.

The Kottayam Cooperative Printing Society and the Liberty printing press, Kozhikode, were given the orders for the textbooks after inviting competitive bids and ensuring the antecedents of both these institutions. As per the provisions of the tender, the printing of textbooks outside the State cannot be prevented. Textbooks of the States of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are being printed at Sivakashi, the pressnote said.

Adequate quantities of paper have been made available to the government presses for printing the textbooks for which 60 cm, 76 cm and 86 cm reels are used. There are shortcomings in the usage of paper at the KPBS at Kakkanad due to the fact that only 60 cm reels are used here. While wastage of one per cent and four per cent is allowed at the government presses for black and white and colour printing respectively, the corresponding figures at the KPBS are 6 per cent and 8 per cent respectively. The wastage allowed for private presses is one per cent.

The functioning of all presses in the public sector, including the KPBS, would be reviewed at the Government level, the pressnote added.

Special coaching:

A special coaching programme would be implemented this year in 31 government schools where the pass percentage in the SSLC examinations is very low. Last year the programme was implemented in 60 schools where the pass percentage was below 25. Consequently 44 schools went past the 25 per cent mark. However, 15 more schools came into this category. It is in these 31 schools that the programme would be implemented. The Education Minister, Nalakath Soopy, inaugurated a programme in which the headmasters of all these schools participated.

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