Students will get new textbooks during annual exams in December, says education minister

Work orders for printing will be issued in the first week of August, with slight curriculum revisions planned

Education Minister ANM Ehsanul Hoque Milon

Students will receive their textbooks for the new academic year by December, Education Minister ANM Ehsanul Hoque Milon has said.

After a meeting at the Secretariat reviewing the progress of textbook publication on Monday, he said he expected books to reach students in time for the final exams held in the month.

Milon said the prime minister had directed the ministry to be ready with the new textbooks by Nov 30, so that books reach students right at the start of the new year.

The tender process for printing is under way, with work orders to be issued to printers by the first week of August, after which printing will begin, he added.

According to him, the ministry's own team, along with the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB), will oversee the process, and everything is in place to ensure smooth distribution.

Milon also said next year's textbooks would carry some revisions to the curriculum.

Under a tradition begun in 2010, Bangladesh has typically handed free textbooks to students on the first day of the new year, but that timeline has slipped repeatedly in recent years.

This year, education authorities had promised almost all books to students by mid-January, only for delivery to secondary students to stretch into February, with the NCTB confirming complete distribution of Class 10 books only in early February.

Curriculum changes, delayed manuscripts and printing bottlenecks have been cited as recurring reasons for the hold-ups.