Kathmandu, January 17

Women, Children, Senior Citizen and Social Welfare Committee of the Parliament has directed the education ministry to manage  adequate school textbooks for the new academic session beginning from April 14.

The House panel instructed Minister for Education Dhaniram Paudel to provide additional resources and manpower to Janak Education Material Centre for the purpose. “If JEMC fails to meet its target, other publication houses such as Sajha Prakashan can help the government print and distribute school textbooks,” said committee chair Ranju Jha, adding that the responsibility of publishing school textbooks should not be given to private firms.

Speaking at the meeting, Minister Paudel said the government was running JEMC printing presses in full capacity to print adequate textbooks. “But we may still fall short of around 5 million textbooks for the new academic session,” added Paudel.

According to an official at JEMC, a total of 130,000 textbooks from Grade VI to IX are required for the country, but JEMC has printed only 80,000 textbooks so far. The government has given the responsibility of printing textbooks from Grade I to V to private publishers.

Minister Paudel informed the panel that the government was drafting a master plan to enhance the capacity of JEMC and set up printing press in each province.