KARACHI, March 16: The Sindh Textbook Board on Friday was directed by the provincial education minister to finalise the allocation to the publishers/ printers for printing of textbooks by the end of next week.

Sindh Education Minister Dr Hameed Khuhro while presiding over a meeting here on Friday directed the STBB to take a final decision on purchase of paper for printing textbooks in time.

The meeting was also attended by acting Chairman Sindh Textbook Board Mazhar Siddiqui, Education Department officials, Chairman, Pakistan Publishers and Booksellers’ Association (PPBA) Aziz Khalid, members Zia Amjad Ali, Arshad Ali, Humayun Mirza, and others. Officials at the meeting told DAWN that the meeting focussed on the procedure of implementation of the new curriculum in the subjects of English and Urdu in classes one and six, mathematics of classes one and six, and Islamiat of classes one, three and four, and Science of classes four and six.

The publishers were given a March 31 deadline to prepare specimen books for the specified subjects and submit them to the Education Department. They were, however, free to choose the colour and size of books. The specimen books to be prepared under the new curriculum will be sent to the National Review Committee in Islamabad and after their approval, the publishers given go ahead for printing.

The meeting was told that the process of allocation of other textbooks from classes one to ten was already delayed due to non-procurement of paper. The education minister took serious notice and directed the acting STBB chairman to give allocations to publishers within a week and also finalise procurement of paper. Procurement and printing costs around Rs700 million.

The PPBA Chairman, Aziz Khalid, informed the meeting that the process was already delayed but he assured the minister of PPBA’s full cooperation to print and hand over the textbooks on time.

Sources said the procurement of paper and printing of textbooks would have to be completed by the end of July and the books distributed before the academic session begins on August 15.

Tenders for procurement of 68 gram paper were invited and eleven samples received. The samples were sent to two different public sector laboratories. One, an army-managed laboratory, reported that not a single sample met the STBB specification. However, the second laboratory certified seven of the eleven samples as being according to STBB specification. The samples of the two lowest bidders were rejected and the STBB awarded a Rs340 million contract to the third lowest bidder for procurement of paper. However, the decision has to be ratified by the Finance Committee meeting of the STBB, which was still indecisive in its recent meeting.