Bilingual books delayed: Official

Out of 1.67 cr books, only 40L dispatched by now

Out of 1.67 crore bilingual textbooks, only 40 lakhs have been dispatched even as schools are set to reopen on June 13. Officials claimed that remaining books would be ready by June end. Bilingual textbooks will be available only to students studying from Classes II to VIII.

As the government decided to introduce English medium in staterun schools, textbooks are being printed in English and Telugu. The English content is printed on the left and the Telugu version on the right. Except for the first and second languages, all other subjects will have textbooks printed in bilingual format.

“All 33 districts will receive 100 per cent textbooks by July 15. 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.

“The process got delayed as the printing costs increased and we had to get approval from the government,” Srinivasachary 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 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 teach them the concepts in classes which will include a part of the new syllabus,” said R. Sharada, in-charge headmistress, of a school.

According to the school education department, students have enrolled in government schools in the city from private, Anganwadi schools and through direct admission through the Badi Bata programme.

As of June 10, 70,698 students had enrolled under the Badi Bata, of which 1,812 students are in Hyderabad. An official also said admissions would continue till September 31 for all classes.