KATHMANDU, MAR 18 - The row between Janak Education Materials Centre (JEMC) and Ministry of Education (MoE) over price adjustment of school textbooks may leave students across the country sans books when the next academic session begins from April 15.

Officials at JEMC-a government-owned corporation responsible for printing and supplying of school textbooks-have warned that they would stop supplying books if the government failed to increase the prices.

About 85 percent of books have already been printed for the next academic session.

“JEMC in the last 10 years has incurred loss to the tune of Rs. 200 million as the government has failed to adjust the price,” said Birendra Kumar Das, Managing Director of JEMC. “If the government fails to adjust the prices this year also, JEMC will have an additional loss of Rs. 400 million. We are not in a position to take chance.”

Prices for the textbooks were set at Rs. 0.21 to Rs. 0.26 per page in 2000. But there has been no price review in the last 10 years. JEMC officials said it was unwise that the government has not reviewed prices even though costs of raw materials-paper and ink-and transportation charges have gone up by as much as 200 percent.

According to Das, JEMC since 2007 has been sending proposals to MoE seeking increase in the prices by Rs. 0.31 to Rs. 0.32 per page. But there has been no headway.

According to MoE, there are more than 7.2 million students studying in 31,000 schools across the country. About 300 million copies of textbooks are required for grade one to eight. JMEC has already printed and supplied 240 million copies to its Regional Distribution Centres.

Not only MoE, even Guardian Association Nepal (GAN), an umbrella organisation of the guardians, has also stood against the JMEC demand to hike textbook prices. “There should be extensive deliberations among the stakeholders including students and us guardians before the government takes any decision to hike the prices,” Suprabhat Bhandari.

However, Education Secretary Deependra Bikram Thapa said the government two years ago had decided to increase the budget for printing the textbooks and it was mentioned in the budget speech also. “But there are some legal procedures which will soon be resolved,” said Thapa.

Posted on: 2010-03-18 12:00

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