School students celebrate New Year with new textbooks

Hossen Sohel of DOT
Like every year, the students of primary, secondary, madrasa and technical education institutes celebrated the Textbook Day yesterday, the first day of the New Year, which coincides with the beginning of their academic sessions, reports bdnews24.com.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had inaugurated the festival for the distribution of free textbooks among primary to ninth-grade students for the coming year on Dec 24.
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid officially launched the distribution by handing over new books at the Azimpur Govt Girls School and College on Tuesday.
Around 350.21 million textbooks are being distributed among about 40.26 million
students throughout Bangladesh. A total 2.96 billion textbooks have been distributed since 2010, Nahid said.
Speaking on the occasion, the minister said ‘this new generation’ have to contribute to build a developed Bangladesh.
“The Bangladesh government launched the festival in 2010 to distribute free textbooks among students. Other world leaders are surprised to observe such a festival as they have yet to take any similar initiative,” Nahid said.
“Bangladesh government has taken the initiative to build a developed and an educated nation. Before this many students were not going to school and many of them dropped out due to the shortage of books and other educational materials. Now the drop out rate has nearly been eliminated,” Nahid said.