Apart from grappling with the problems of dilapidated buildings and lack of teachers, government school students from classes A to 8 in far flung areas of the State have to often contend with free textbooks reaching them late, sometimes even as late as April or even June. This time though, for the first time in many years, the consignment of textbooks from New Delhi has reached the godown near Government College here on time – in the last week of December 2018 – and before the start of the new academic session.
Last year, the consignment had reached Dimapur only in the month of March on account of the Assembly elections. School Education department’s language official, Takowati, who is in charge of distribution of the consignment to over 1000 primary, middle, high and higher secondary schools under 37 subdivisions across 11 districts, informed Nagaland Post that distribution of the textbooks would commence on Monday, with schools in Mon and other eastern parts being accorded priority.
On Thursday, a two-member team consisting of NSF general secretary Imtiyapang Imsong and information and publicity secretary Shilukaba Longchar inspected the godown where the books had been kept. The duo appealed to the official in-charge to ensure that efforts were made from the SDO level to make sure that textbooks reached students at the earliest, while also thanking the education department for arrival of the consignment on time.
Takowati informed this reporter that the transportation of consignments by trains and trucks took around 8 to 15 days to reach Dimapur. He said, as per the agreement in the work order, publishers often did not specify details of the SDOs on the parcel.
This year though, the godown in-charge called the publishers from Delhi to ensure that details of the SDOs were mentioned in the parcel. Only after doing so, the textbooks could be arranged district-wise. Around 40% of the consignment is meant for Dimapur, he added.
When asked how teachers and students, particularly in remote parts of the State, coped with textbooks reaching them late, the language officer said the teachers would collect textbooks at the end of academic session and use them for the next session.
He, however, expressed immense satisfaction with the textbooks arriving on time this time and hoped that students would be able to use brand new textbooks by the time the classes start.
Textbooks reaching late have been a nagging problem for many years now due to various factors. Firstly, enrolment in each district has to be notified in May, whereas admissions still go on even after May in remote areas. Secondly, only after the schools submit the enrolment numbers, the order is processed. And textbooks reaching students on time largely depended on the prompt action on the part of both heads of the schools and government officials at different levels.
Currently, seven publishers supply textbooks to the State – Allied, Amanta, Scholar, Goodluck, Tushar, Scholar, Tychee and Xow.