Kathmandu, August 4:

The Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) has given the task of printing textbooks required for fifth graders of the eastern region to a private party. There are 16 districts in the region. The state-owned Education Material Centre (JEMC) used to print all the school textbooks. The ministry has also formed a monitoring committee headed by the Education secretary for monitoring the programme.

Laba Prasad Tripathee, joint secretary at the ministry, told this daily the decision was made following complaints about delay in getting textbooks on time. “The decision to let the private party print the textbooks this year was taken with the objective of making textbooks available to the students on time. The programme will be replicated in other regions from next year if it sees success in the east,” said Tripathee.

However, an official at the JEMC, seeking anonymity, said the government should have launched the project in remote districts first.

“As the idea of printing books for the remote regions will not wow printing houses, the government chose to launch the programme in the east, which is more developed,” the official said, accusing the government of creating a gap between the rich and the poor. Tripathee,

however, said, “The decision of letting the private party print the books was taken with an aim of promoting competition between the private and public printing houses.”