KARACHI, July 3: Since the federal education ministry's NOCs for new books are pending, the Sindh Textbook Board (STB) has decided to market at least three SSC-II old books for the new academic session commencing on August 16.

A source in the STB told Dawn that the manuscripts pertaining to the three new books- physics, mathematics and computer studies- were sent to a wing concerned of the education ministry in Islamabad over a year back, but those could not be cleared so far.

It was learnt that in line with the directives of the federal government's curriculum wing, the STB had been working on a number of new books for the past few years and succeeded to release five new books for the SSC scheme only last year. The other three provinces have already published new or revised textbooks during the last three years, added the source.

When contacted, STB Chairman Abdul Aziz Mehranvi said that the manuscripts in question were kept on the back burner by the federal ministry as the government wanted to give new curricula for books again.

However, lately, Islamabad has informed us that we may go ahead with the old books of physics, mathematics and computer studies for class X, he added saying that perhaps the authorities concerned had not been able to finalise the outlines of the future books.

To a question, he said that the STB would start placing print orders for the old three books in question soon and it was hoped that those would be available to students at the beginning of the academic session.

In the meantime, an official source said that the STB chairman also informed Sindh Education Minister Dr Hamida Khuhro at a meeting on Monday that the federal government authorities had delayed the clearance of books of mathematics, physics and computer, following which the STB was allowed to publish old titles of the subjects.