MoE procrastinating in printing & distribution of new textbooks
Manpower, security guard, maintenance also delayed
KUWAIT CITY, May 11: After the Ministry of Education announced that the mechanism for the resumption of school in the next academic year will be in accordance with the comprehensive traditional system and the exceptional preparations required to ensure the readiness of schools for the return of students in the 2022/2023 academic year as scheduled in September, educational sources expressed their surprise at the delay in starting the procedures for floating tenders for printing textbooks for the first semester of the next academic year.
The sources said, “In April every year, the Ministry of Education distributes new textbooks to all school stages, The distribution process continues until August in order to avoid any delay that may occur, as well as to ensure the distribution of books to students on the first day of school. However, the procedures for printing these new books scheduled for next year have not started yet, let alone talk about their distribution, which portends a stifling educational disaster.
Bottleneck
The ministry will enter into a bottleneck if it does not catch up with the situation and put the safety and readiness of the preparations in mind, as time is running out and the procedures are at ease”.
The sources explained that the ministry, in early January every year, begins to prepare textbooks of the first semester for all educational stages in preparation for their distribution, as soon as they are printed, to schools before the next academic year, according to the budget of each school, at an appropriate time. Millions of books are awaiting printing procedures but the ministry is still procrastinating as it believes there is still plenty of time in the matter.
They said, “The textbooks file is one of several items to prepare for the new exceptional year 2022/2023. There are other files that are no less important than books that are also still revolving around procrastination, including manpower, security guard, maintenance and nutrition to meet and provide the needs of public schools for the new academic year”.
The sources highlighted that the procedures for printing and distributing textbooks for all educational levels require a series of long procedural works in its documentary cycle, indicating that this series of procedures has not been completed so far, except for the books exchanged between departments in accordance with the “routine of exchanging letters” for an obvious issue that its procedures are annual activities.