Dipayal, July 18:

The new academic session began three months ago, but the students do not even know how their new textbooks look like.

Due to unavailability of new textbooks, schools of Doti district are giving the first terminal exam by asking questions from the old course.

Students are required to take the first term exam by the fourth week of July. Some of the schools have conducted the first term exam, while the exam has been going on in other schools.

“We are conducting the exam as per the old course because it is not good to shelve regular academic activities just because textbooks are not available,” Khagendra Ojha, a teacher in Nirauli village development committee-based Krishna Lower Secondary School, said.

Ram Bahadur Karki, headmaster of Gopaghat-based Radhakrishna Higher Secondary School, said, “We are forced to conduct the exam by sticking to the old curriculum due to the unavailability of new textbooks.”

“If the textbooks were made available on time, the classes would have been regular and students would have performed well,” he said.

“As the teachers have taught us from old textbooks, the questions were also asked from the old textbooks,” Pankaj Deuba, a 10th grader at Chudi VDC-based Saraswati Secondary School, said.

The students and teachers are still unaware of the new curriculum and new textbooks.

Doti District Education Officer Daman Chaudhari said the unavailability of textbooks was the major reason behind the poor performance of students in School Leaving Certificate exams.

Courses of Grades III, IX and X have been revised, but 50 per cent of students have not got new textbooks, Shiv Prasad Sharma, chief of the Dipayal office of Sajha Publications, said, adding that textbooks of optional subjects of other grades were also not available.