LAHORE, May 7: The Punjab Textbook Board has not published physics and mathematics textbooks for Class-X as students admitted to Class-IX will only study biology and chemistry this year.

According to the newly approved examination system by the federal government, the Class-IX and X examinations will be held separately.

This was stated by PTB chairperson Dr Fauzia Saleemi while speaking at a Press conference at a local hotel on Tuesday. Similarly, she said that some arts subjects had also been bifurcated and would be printed according to the schedule requirements. She claimed that the pre-press material of all unprinted textbooks was ready and could produce textbooks even in a week time.

She also denied the claim that biology and chemistry textbooks were in short supply in the market. She claimed that according to available statistics some 150,000 students had been registered in Class-IX, while the PTB had published 193,000 chemistry Part-I and 195,000 biology Part-I textbooks.

Answering a question, she said the board had constituted a number of teams to conduct raids in different cities to check and apprehend booksellers found hoarding textbooks.

Dr Saleemi also said that the board had this year published some 27.985 million textbooks during this year against 24.671 million textbooks published last year. She also claimed that the board was keeping the prices of its textbooks as low as at Rs33.05 for Urdu, English, mathematics and science produced in one jacket for Class-I.

She said the board had also published 12 new textbooks according to the newly revised syllabi.