Finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed on Sunday said that hopefully, they would distribute free textbooks among students on the first day of 2026 despite orders for more than half of such books yet to be placed.
He made the comment after sending back a proposal to purchase 5.54 crore copies of textbooks at a meeting of the advisory council committee on government purchase at the secretariat in the capital Dhaka.
The finance adviser, who presided over the meeting, said that the proposal from the Secondary and Higher Education Division needed more scrutiny.
Upon completing scrutiny, the division has been asked to submit its report to the committee after two weeks, the adviser added.
National Curriculum and Textbook Board under the division is racing to print about 30.02 crore copies of textbooks by December 15.
According to board officials, it usually takes five months from calling tenders to complete the printing of textbooks.
It will 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 August, the same advisory council committee sent back another proposal to purchase 12.61 crore copies of textbooks for Class VI-VIII, causing concerns over meeting the printing deadline.
Dismissing any chance of missing the January 1 deadline for distributing the textbooks among students, the finance adviser said that unlike the previous year, the placing of orders would be completed in this month.
In 2024, orders were placed in November, he said while explaining nearly three-month delay in distributing all textbooks in 2025.
The NCTB that has been distributing free textbooks on the first day of a calendar year since 2010 faced heavy criticism for failing to distribute the textbooks to all primary and secondary-level students on the day past year.
鈥榃e have already placed some orders this year,鈥� said Salehuddin, adding that they had asked for the names of the previous suppliers to be certain that there was no monopoly in tenders this year.
He also said that they had also asked for the list of errant suppliers.
Under the proposal which was sent back on Sunday, the NTCB had proposed buying the 5.54 crore copies of books from 223 suppliers selected through open tenders.
The cost of purchasing the books was estimated at Tk聽479 crore.
