Municipal schools yet to provide for 37,495 wards.
First-term exams are round the corner. Yet, one out of four students of the Ahmedabad Municipal School Board (AMSB) is waiting for a complete set of textbooks. At least 37,495 students of classes II to VI at primary schools run by the AMSB have been facing shortage of textbooks.
Although the primary education arm of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) takes pride in doing well in Gunotsav, it seems least bothered about providing basic study material to the students on time.
In fact, all mediums of instructions are affected. But it is worse in Hindi and Urdu medium schools. In Gujarati medium, a minimum of 746 students of Class VIII have not got any textbooks at all, said an AMSB record. At least 378 students of Class VII and 262 of Class VI are facing similar problems. In Class V of the Gujarati medium, 5,134 students are without mathematics textbooks, while 4,581 are waiting for English textbooks.
“The state government claims to provide better infrastructure and thus improve the standard of education. However, shortage of textbooks has exposed their claims,” said former AMSB member Habib Mew.
Incidentally, the first-term examination of primary students is round the corner. Students of classes III to V are to appear in the exam on October 21, while the examination for upper primary students of classes VI to VIII will begin on October 24.
“The students will be half-prepared for the examination as they are still waiting for textbooks of one or more subjects. This will ultimately affect their performance,” said Mew.
The authorities, however, claimed otherwise. “Only 7,000 students do not have textbooks of one or more subjects,” said AMSB administrative officer Lagdhir Desai, adding that though they used last year’s stocks to provide the textbooks, it was not enough to meet the requirement. He, however, failed to explain the reason for the shortage of textbooks.
The textbook crunch is a perennial problem affecting not only primary schools of the civic body but all over the state. Last year, too, over 1.5 lakh students did not get textbooks till mid-August.
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