The advisory council committee on government purchase at a meeting on Wednesday approved three separate proposals to buy about 12.5 crore copies of textbooks at a cost of Tk聽443.87 crore.
Presided over by finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed from the United States online, the Secondary and Higher Education Division鈥檚 proposals to purchase the textbooks for Class VI, Class VII and Class VIII were approved.
The same proposals were sent back by the same committee in August for further review, creating doubts over meeting the deadline for printing textbooks.
Of the proposals, 4.36 crore copies of books for the Class VI will be purchased at Tk聽137.87 crore under 98 tenders, 4.15 crore copies of textbooks for Class VII at Tk聽150 crore under 100 tenders and 4.2 crore copies of textbooks for Class VIII at Tk聽156 crore under 90 tenders.
In the past week, the advisory council committee also approved supply deals of 5.54 crore copies of textbooks for Class IX-X.
The National Curriculum and Textbook Board, an autonomous organisation under the education ministry, has targeted to print about 30.02 crore copies of textbooks by December 15 so that the government can distribute those to students on the first day of the next year.
The board needs to print 60.67 lakh copies of pre-primary textbooks, 7.90 crore copies of Class I-V textbooks, 1.85 lakh copies of ethnic minority group textbooks, 6.43 lakh copies of additional pre-primary (4+) textbooks, 12.61 crore copies of Class VI-VIII textbooks, 5.7 crore copies of Class IX-X textbooks, 3.11 crore copies of Ibtedayi textbooks and 6,026 copies of Braille method textbooks this year.
In 2024, orders were placed in November by the interim government that assumed office following the ouster of the Awami League regime on August 5 past year amid a mass uprising, causing nearly a three-month delay in distributing all textbooks in 2025.
The board that has been distributing free textbooks on the first day of every calendar year for one and a half decades faced heavy criticisms for failing to distribute the textbooks to all primary and secondary-level students on the first day of the current calendar year.
