PESHAWAR, March 29: The NWFP Textbook Board lacks the ability to implement the new textbook policy and needs time to develop new textbooks, sources in the board told Dawn here on Saturday.

The new textbook policy was notified on June 13, 2007 by the federal education ministry and its main objective is to improve the quality of education through high-quality textbooks at affordable prices. Under this policy, the textbook boards in the country were asked to invite private publishers to develop and submit manuscripts.

Delay in preparation of textbooks under the new policy is likely to delay distribution of textbooks to government schools in the new academic session (2008-09) starting from September.

Officials in the provincial education department said that the federal government gave a schedule last year for preparation of textbooks. The government had asked the boards to prepare textbooks of some selected subjects and grades and August 15, 2008 was declared the date of distribution of the new textbooks.

However, the NWFP Textbook Board, following the old procedure, prepared manuscripts with the help of own authors. But the executive committee of the education ministry objected to the procedure, concerned officials said.

“Now we are told to get the manuscripts through private publishers. But we would not be able to prepare textbooks for the coming academic session under the new policy,” an official of the board said, adding that they lacked capacity and needed at least three years to implement the new textbook policy in “letter and spirit”.

However, an official in the provincial education department alleged that some vested interest groups in the textbook board were creating hurdles in adoption of the new policy.