Caretaker Chief Minister Justice (Retd.) Maqbool Baqar speaking at a free textbooks distribution ceremony among the school children at Landhi said that the school education department has printed the last tranche of textbooks for which this ceremony has been organized to distribute them among the students.
The ceremony was organised by Minister of Education Rana Hussain at the warehouse of Sindh Textbook Board, Gaddafi Town Ground, Landhi Industrial Area, Karachi. Chairman of STBB Agha Sohail, education department officers, and parents of students attended the ceremony. The CM said that he was feeling relieved by distributing textbook sets amongst students and hoped that the teachers would work hard to complete the course which had been delayed due to lack of textbooks. Baqar said: We, as a nation, have lagged in every sector and are much behind the other developing nations but all these gaps could be stridden over if we succeed in improving our education system for which every segment of society, particularly the teachers, the academicians, the parents and the civil society will have to play their due role. He said that these were our children, and they were our future, and we have to decide how to shape our future. Quoting Mark Twain, the CM said, the man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read and he believed that we must not let it come to this – our children must have ac-cess to education. It is their right. Minister Education Rana Hussain speaking on the occasion said that she pursued the STBB and the remaining tranche of the books printed which fi-nally has materialized. She suggested the chief minister allow her to start the academic session in April instead of August. If the session is started in April, it would help the students to carry their homework and reading material for their summer vacation, she said.
Another suggestion Dr Rana Hussain gave to the chief minister was recollecting the textbooks given to students once their ses-sion was over. She said, the books are the property of the gov-ernment and if the parents play their role in returning the books given to the [school]l children they would be provided to the other students in the session, she said and added the shortfall [of the books] would be printed if the collection remained below the target or the enrolment was increased.
