Hyderabad: Out of 1.67 crore bilingual textbooks, only 40 lakhs have been dispatched even as schools are set to reopen. Officials claimed that remaining textbooks would be ready by June end. Bilingual textbooks will be available only to students studying from class II to class VIII.
As the government decided to introduce English medium in state-run schools, textbooks are being printed in English and Telugu. The English content is printed on the left and the Telugu version of the same will be printed on the right. Except for the first and second languages, all other subjects will have textbooks printed in bilingual format.
"All the 33 districts in the state will receive 100 per cent textbooks by July. A total of 40 lakhs textbooks have been dispatched and by June end, another 80 per cent of the students will get the textbooks," said S. Srinivasachary, director, textbooks.
He added that by July 15, all students in the state would have textbooks. “Books are sent to districts from where they will be sent to mandals and then to schools. The process got delayed as the printing costs increased and we had to get approval from the government,” he said.
Government teachers said that they would officially start teaching the syllabus for the upcoming academic year from July 1. The teachers who are going to schools since June 3 have prepared a bridge course for the students containing concepts from the previous year’s syllabus that are important for the upcoming academic year.
“We teachers have prepared a plan and for the month of June, our focus is to brush up important concepts through T-SAT programmes and we will also teach them the concepts in classes which will include a part of the new syllabus,” said R. Sharada, in-charge headmistress, of a government school in the city.
According to the school education department, many students have enrolled in various government schools in the city from private, Anganwadi schools and through direct admission through the Badi Bata programme. As of June 10, a total of 70,698 such students have been enrolled under the Badi Bata programme, of which 1,812 students are in Hyderabad. An official also said admissions would continue till September 31 for all classes.
