THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a first, the students of classes II, IV, VI, VIII, and X in state syllabus schools will get textbooks for the 2024-25 academic year before the current academic year draws to a close.
The statewide distribution of the first volume of 1.43 crore textbooks began on Tuesday. For classes I, III, V, VII, and IX, the curriculum has been revised, and the printing of the 2.09 crore new textbooks is expected to be completed by the first week of May.
Last year, the general education department had completed the distribution of the first volume of over 2.8 crore textbooks for all classes just in time before school reopening. That record was broken this year with textbooks ready for distribution before mid-March.
The distribution of textbooks for 2024-25 was inaugurated at Government Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Cotton Hill, by General Education Minister V Sivankutty.
He said gone were the days when textbooks would not reach schools even after the Onam vacation. Owing to the delay in textbook distribution, students then had to rely on photocopied pages of textbooks when schools reopened.
“While timely printing of textbooks is the government’s responsibility, it is also a form of resistance against the concerted attempts to impose centralised textbooks,” the minister said in reference to the removal of certain portions from NCERT textbooks the state follows for a few subjects in the higher secondary sector.
He said the state had introduced supplementary textbooks for the Plus-II students to overcome the deletion of certain portions in NCERT textbooks. This was to ensure that constitutional values were protected, he said.