Aurangabad, May 8:
Around 14,019 parents of students from standard first to eight returned textbook to Education Department for their re-use.
It may be noted that the State Government distributes free textbooks to all students studying up to standard eight-under Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan. The Government distributed textbooks to around 3.33 lakh students in the district.
The syllabus does not change every year, so, the Education Department decided to re-use textbooks of those students who were promoted in the next class and create awareness of environment preservation among them.
The Education Department appealed to all students and parents to return their textbooks. A total of 14,019 parents returned the textbooks so far.
Schools up to standard fourth were not in the last academic year while students of standard fifth to eight attended actual classes for some days. The textbooks were not much used by the students.
Education officer Surajprasad Jaiswal and Sojwal Jain took the initiative to re-use textbooks and urged parents to return them. The initiative received a good response from parents. The Education Department will have to seek fewer new textbooks for the new academic year and save the government money. Also, the students will learn to preserve the environment. Of the total returned textbooks, 14,918 are from Marathi medium while 1101 are from Urdu medium students. Education Department received information from semi-English students of Gangapur, Kannad, Paithan, Vaijapur and Phulambri that they would return 1634 textbooks.
The highest number of textbooks was returned from Kannad and Vaijapur tehsil while fewer textbooks from Aurangabad, Sillod and Soyegaon.
The class-wise students strength is as follows; first standard (88,329), second (88,189), third (88,202), fourth (89,211), fifth (87,869), sixth (86,207), seventh (85,044) and eighth (79,633). This year, there is demand of 3.36 lakh textbooks.