Govt to print textbooks in 5 ethnic languages
The government has decided to print pre-primary level textbooks in five ethnic languages for children of minority groups in school from the next academic year, said Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid.
"We will distribute pre-primary level textbooks printed in Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Sadri and Garo languages from the next academic year free of cost," Nahid told The Daily Star yesterday.
The decision was made in a meeting of the officials of National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) on the textbooks of the next academic year at the NCTB office in the capital.
"The children of the ethnic minorities should start their education life in their own tongues. Keeping this in mind, we have made the decision," the minister said.
The ministry started collecting data about the number of students speaking in the five languages. After getting the data, it would decide about the number of textbooks to be printed, said a source.
"Later on, we will publish books for the kids of all ethnic minorities," Nahid said.
The meeting also came to a decision to print some 9,066 Braille books for the visually-impaired students. The ministry would also publish around 1.32 crore teaching manuals for teachers of primary and high schools to help them teach the students properly.
The education minister said the number of free textbooks would be increased next year.
Over 36 crore copies of textbooks would be printed, he added.
Last year, the government distributed 33.38 crore books among the students of pre-primary, primary, secondary and technical education schools and ebtedai and dakhil madrasas.
To solve the long-standing textbook crisis, the government in 2009 decided to distribute textbooks among students free of cost. Since then, it has so far distributed more than 189.21 crore copies of textbooks among primary and secondary students.
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