School students show mistakes in textbooks to education minister

Frustrated by the mistakes in his mathematics textbook, a class eight student boldly stepped up at a meeting in presence of the education minister yesterday to say that some answers in it were incorrect.
Taking up the meeting moderator's challenge to solve one problem, Arafat Hossain showed within minutes that his claim was true.
Some 56 school students hailing from the country's seven divisions attended the views-exchange meeting on primary and secondary level textbooks jointly organised by Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE) and Manusher Jonno Foundation in the capital's Local Government Engineering Department.
Another class eight student, Sumaiya, found incorrect chemical equations in her chemistry book. Most students opined avoiding such mistakes and use of lucid language.
This year's textbooks contain several printing and technical mistakes “as it was a huge task” to introduce new curriculum in 111 textbooks and distribute those across the country, said Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid.
Some 27 crore textbooks were published in 2012 for around four crore students and another four crore may be published this year, he said adding that the textbook changes were the first of its kind in the last 18 years.
Nahid identified low budget allocation as one hurdle in bringing positive changes to the education sector.
CAMPE Executive Director Rasheda K Chowdhury and National Curriculum and Textbook Board Chairman Shafiqur Rahman also spoke.