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Textbook shortage hits Jhapa students

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Jhapa, May 24, 2016: With Janak Education Materials Center (JEMC) failing to ensure the availability of textbooks, thousands of students are still without course books in Jhapa district.

Although private firms have been allowed to print textbooks from grade one to six, only JEMC has the authority to print textbooks from grade six to ten. There is no shortage of textbooks of grade one to six in the market, which JEMC jointly prints with private firms. However, there is a severe shortage of textbooks that only JEMC has authority to print.

Failure to timely print the required numbers of textbooks has severely affected children’s studies as they prepare for their first terminal examinations without books.

“We still don’t have books although it has been over a month since our academic session started,” said Rupen Rajbanshi of Birtamod, a seventh-grader. “This has prevented us from doing assignments and hampered our studies.”

Udaya Bista, under-secretary at the District Education Office, said both the students and teachers have been facing severe difficulties in lack of textbooks. “JEMC has cited Madhes agitation and the Indian blockade as the cause of the delay. All we have been hearing is that the textbooks would arrive very soon.”

Likewise, Sagar Rijal, principal of Himali Higher Secondary School, said that without books teachers are struggling to teach. “Some materials in textbooks are updated every year. But in lack of new textbooks, teachers would have no choice but to teach from the old books.”