AHMEDABAD: The state education department has directed the government and grant-in-aid schools to sell all undistributed textbooks for Class 9 to Class 12 as scrap.
The Gujarat State School Textbook Board (GSSTB) distributes textbooks for free but due to some reason or another, many schools are not able to distribute all of them, said sources in the education department.
“There have been instances in the past where some school officials had tried to siphon money by selling the undistributed books. In order to avoid such incident in the future, the schools have been asked to sell them as waste and reflect it in their school accounts,” said sources. GSSTB has decided to start the process of distribution of school textbooks early for 2022-23. The massive exercise involves reaching out to 1.25 crore students from Class 1 to Class 12. The decision has been taken after many schools and students complained that the textbooks did not reach them even months after the current academic year started in July. About 30,000 tonnes of paper will be used to publish a total of 8.5 crore textbooks for Class 1 to Class 12 students.
