Textbooks under new curriculum will be distributed from 2022

The Ministry of Education has decided to distribute textbooks, which earlier were planned to be made available to students from 2021, under a new curriculum from 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic across the country.

Students will get textbooks under the existing curriculum in 2021.

A top official at the Ministry of Education confirmed the matter to Dhaka Tribune on Tuesday.

The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Education Minister Dipu Moni at the International Mother Language Institute in the capital.

The meeting was held to set a pre-determined target for launching a new curriculum from pre-primary to class XII by 2021.

Prof Narayan Chandra Saha, chairman of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB), said: “It will not be possible to deliver books under a new curriculum in 2021 owing to the coronavirus outbreak. Students will get the textbooks under a new curriculum from 2022.”

It was previously decided by the ministry that textbooks would be distributed under a new curriculum by 2021 for students of class I, class II, and class VI, he said.

However, the textbook  delay notwithstanding, a teacher’s guide would be provided to  teachers next year under the new curriculum, added Prof Narayan Saha.

He also said: “Teachers will get ideas about the new curriculum by reading the guidelines.”

Among others, State Minister for Primary and Mass Education Zakir Hossain, Deputy Minister of Education Mahibul Hasan Chowdhury, Secretary of the Ministry of Secondary and Higher Education Mahbub Hossain, Technical and Madrasa Secretary Munshi Shahabuddin Ahmed and Primary and Mass Education Secretary Akram-al-Hussein were present at the meeting.

Since the 2010 academic year, the government has been providing free textbooks to students on the first day of the academic year.

Around 42 million school children across the country received textbooks free of cost on January 1, 2020.

A total of 3, 53,144,554 copies of textbooks were distributed among 4, 26, 19,865 students of pre-primary, primary, ebtedayee, secondary, dakhil, and vocational institutions this academic year.