LARKANA, Oct 18: The management of Sindh Text Book Board Jamshoro, had finally agreed to provide 4,672 sets of text books to distribute among the students studying in classes from VI to X in Larkana district.

The total demand of the books made by the district officer education (secondary) Larkana was 44,103 while STBB had provided only 39,431 with the shortage of 4,672 books, sources told ‘Dawn’ here on Saturday.

According to the break-up, the District Officer (DO) education had demanded 32,223 sets of books in Sindhi language in different subjects for free distribution among the students studying in classes VI to VIII but the STBB had sent only 29,697 sets of books. Likewise only 272 sets in English language for classes VI to X were provided against the demand of 1685 and only 9462 sets were sent against the demand of 10,195 books in Sindhi language to be distributed among students of classes from VI to VIII in Home Economics group.

The STBB had also sent books in Urdu language instead in Sindhi, the sources said and it had raised a hue and cry in the district. Besides, it had created problem for the students. Taking serious note of the situation, the DCO had sought comments from the concerned DO Education Larkana. The DO (education) in his communication alleged that the managers of STBB had not taken into consideration the original demand of the office. The reason of the shortage of text books was that the STBB had relied on the data pertaining to the year 2006-2007 instead of 2007-2008, he said. The Research Support Centre in education department had also supported the demand of DO Education Larkana, sources said.

A couple of days ago the representative of STBB had phoned the DO education office and informed that it was sending the required quality of sets of the books which was short in the earlier supply and the office would receive the remaining sets soon.

Earlier the managers of STBB had declined to accept the version of DO education regarding both the shortage of books and sending books in the languages which the DO office had not demanded. It had caused tremendous problem for the students and officials. As soon as the books would arrive we would distribute among the students, sources in DO education office said on Saturday. The late distribution of books had not only affected the study of the students but also the purpose of in time and free distribution.