New Year

New Year, new books

Students of primary school showing the new books they received at Motijheel Govt Boys School where the Textbook Festival 2015 was held yesterday. Photo: Anisur Rahman

The morning chill was compounded by a foggy haze all around. A countrywide hartal was also on to set the scene for a bleak day. Yet nothing could deter the school kids from rushing to their schools to receive the New Year gifts awaiting them.
No preparations were there to make a show of the programme. Yet the exuberance displayed by the kids turned every school ground into a veritable carnival.
Students of primary and secondary grades thus began the New Year with new textbooks in their hands, overcoming the fear of violence that every hartal entails.
It was sheer happiness writ large on their faces on getting the textbooks. Some held those up in the air with joy while some were flipping through the pages. The refreshing smell of new books hung in the air all around the schools.
This was just a glimpse of how the first day of the new academic session and the much-awaited "Textbook Festival Day" went all over the country yesterday as the government started distributing over 32.63 crore copies of textbooks to more than 4.44 crore students from class-I to class-IX.
The textbook distribution will continue for the next seven days. So the schools that are yet to start admitting new students will have to hand the new books over to their pupils within this period.
Of the total books, around 11.55 crore are for primary-level students, 14.82 crore for secondary-level students, 3.09 crore for Dakhil (secondary level of madrasa) and Dakhil vocational students, and 1.79 crore for ebtedai (primary level of madrasa) students.

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