PM Hasina to open new year textbook distribution Thursday

Amid the coronavirus situation, the government will hand over new books free of cost to about 45 million students at the beginning of the new year.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will formally inaugurate the distribution of books through a virtual event from her official residence Ganabhaban here on Thursday.

The prime minister will hand over the books to some primary and secondary level students in the presence of ministers and secretaries at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center auditorium in the city’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar.

On January 1, 2021 the book distribution will begin at educational institutions across the country.

Following that, new books will be distributed to the students of sixth to ninth class in the next twelve days in phases.

Although there is no book festival on January 1 due to the closure of educational institutions amid Covid-19 pandemic, these students are getting free books at the beginning of the year.

Around 350 million books are being printed in this regard.

Various still images or pictures of Bangabandhu, independence, great liberation war, language movement and various developmental activities of the present government have been added with captions to new books this time.

Also read: 2020: The year in books

According to the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, the total number of textbooks next year is 102,582,555.

Of these, 25,992,671 books for first-second class students, 69,697,374 books for third-fourth and fifth class students.

Special language books for 94,275 minority ethnic groups (Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Garo and Sadri) will be distributed in five languages from pre-primary to third grade.

This time Braille books will be distributed to 9,196 visually impaired people.

According to the Ministry of Education, in the academic year of 2021, work is underway to print 24 crore 33 lakh 34 thousand copies of books for secondary students.

Awami League government had been holding a "book festival" on January 1 every year in a festive atmosphere since 2010 with the aim of making education standard and preventing dropout rates.

This time it is not possible to hold a book festival due to the global coronavirus.

In the last 10 years from 2010 to the current year (2020), about 3314.7 million primary and secondary books have been distributed across the country.