MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Textbook Board has reiterated its appeal to parents and students to refrain from buying text and grammar books and practical notebooks etc. published without its no-objection certificate (NOC).

In a press release on Friday, the board said the parents and teachers should support and become part of its campaign to keep children away from financial and physical burden of key-books, easy-guides and other unnecessary books.

The AJK Textbook Board is the sole regulatory body for textbooks as well as the allied and supplementary materials in the state, and performs its functions under Textbook Board Act of 2014 which was amended in 2017.

According to the press release, the board had received complaints from various stakeholders (parents, teachers, students) that an organised mafia was active in selling practical notebooks and grammar books at exorbitant prices.

Apart from that, the sale of textbooks without NOC was also going on in public.

Acting on these complaints, the board formed various inspection teams which had been conducting surprise visits in the markets to bring out the real facts to fore, the press release said, regretting that a certain group had resorted to false propaganda campaigns against the board through [a section of] print and social media.

Quoting section 3-B of the Text Book Board (Amendment) Act, 2017 that no person or agency shall, except with the prior approval of the board, print, publish, sell or prescribe in an institution any textbook or supplementary material, the press release clarified that the board’s campaign was purely against textbooks, grammar books and practical notebooks without NOC and not against any particular publisher or book seller.

In this context, the press release said, the board was compelled to remind all concerned for the sake of their awareness, that under law there was a strict ban on all kinds of the so-called key books or guide books because these cast a negative impact on the quality of education and avoidance of their purchase was purely in the interest of students.

Apart from that, purchase of separate grammar books was also unnecessary because the grammar portion had already been added in all English and Urdu language textbooks prepared by the board in accordance with the modern curriculum, it said.

Nevertheless, if the students wanted to avail themselves of separate grammar books, they should purchase the same approved by the board, it added, asserting that grammar books without NOC were not only expensive but also below standard “because their content was unverified and thus likely to spoil the concept of the students”.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2024