Printed words carry some degree of sanctity in that people generally take such words as true. To many people Text books are always correct. But exactly the opposite has happened in Bangladesh this year.
In the present year, soon after the government started distributing some 36.21 crore copies of textbooks among 4.26 crore students of pre-primary, primary and secondary students on January 1, a sizeable number of errors and anomalies in them, including spelling mistakes, wrong arrangements of paragraphs and omission of articles, hit newspaper headlines. The issue also triggered a protests justifiably on social media platforms.
The NCTB is the main source of books for young learners from the baby to secondary stages shaping the minds and knowledge base of our children and young ones. If this role is not exercised properly or as it should be, then the risks of imprinting the minds of the children and youngsters with inaccurate, misleading and biased information and ideas, are obvious.
From childhood the students -who are the future citizens of the country- can be misled, misinformed if text books are filled with errors. Therefore it is high time to take the lapses of the NCTB with a lot of concern and address them expeditiously and effectively.
The NCTB activities have two sides: one for production and distribution of text books and the other for selecting the contents of such books, editing them with a view to making such books mistake-free. It is apparent that the NCTB's strong areas are in the physical production and distribution of the books.
But in respect of the other crucial area of quality production in terms of contents it is doing a rather lackluster or sloppy job. Only from taking care of these quality factors that the NCTB can deliver up to satisfaction. Proper editing of textbooks remains the biggest challenge. First of all, the editors must all be truly competent to do their work well. NCTB must engage only professional editors and proof readers.
The NCTB has otherwise gone on earning praises all around for its timely production of textbooks for students from elementary to secondary levels and reaching the same reasonably to their receivers by the opening of school years.
But notwithstanding this success in producing textbooks and distributing the same in time to pupils, complains have surfaced with justification of not meeting expectations in relation to 'quality' of the books that are being produced and distributed.
Needless to say, the young ones from the very start of their educational pursuit should be imbued with modern and forward looking lessons to be abreast of developments in other highly ranked countries. For this students must have mistake-free books to read.
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