The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Technical glitch for new textbooks in schools

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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Technical glitch for new textbooks in schools

N. Rahul

Government puts off decision as books are not printed in time owing to delay in preparation of films

Classes II, IV and VI would have new material from 2010-11 instead of 2009-10
Schedule to revamp curriculum for other classes would be followed from 2011

HYDERABAD: The State government has dropped the policy decision it had taken earlier to introduce new textbooks for classes I, III and V of the State syllabus from the ensuing academic year for technical reasons.

Principal Secretary of School Education C. B. S. Venkataramana told The Hindu that the new books for the three classes would be made available in the academic year 2009-10. He said the postponement was necessitated as the books could not be printed in time owing to delay in preparation of films which contained the material to be published.

He also said that classes II, IV and VI would have new material from 2010-11 as against the earlier proposal to introduce the same from 2009-10. The rest of the schedule to revamp curriculum for other classes would be followed from 2011.

Meanwhile, officials of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), which is supposed to provide the logistics support, said they did not get subject teachers to proof-read the Desk Top Publishing (DTP) material with manuscripts which were finalised long back. The manuscripts for classes II, IV and VI were also ready, they added.

Shortage of teachers

Non-availability of teachers on account of holidays and a long-drawn training programme for them following the decision of the government to introduce Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) syllabus in its schools has hindered proof-reading.

The government had contemplated to hand over the films with the DTP material which was proof-read against manuscripts to private printers and the Government Textbook Printing Press here for printing of the new books for the three classes in eight media of instruction – Telugu, English, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Urdu, Tamil and Oriya. The curriculum was fitted into 57 titles, each representing a reader.

Compulsory subjects

It was proposed that class I will have a language subject in mother tongue and two compulsory subjects – English and Mathematics – but classes III and V will have an additional subject - Environmental Studies.

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