The government distributed 259 crore, 79 lakh, 22 thousand and 902 textbooks free of cost among the pre-primary and secondary level students from the academic year 2010 to 2018, reports BSS. “The government distributed textbooks among pre-primary, primary, ibtedayee, secondary, dakhil, dakhil (vocational) and SSC vocational) students at a cost of Taka 3,984 crore, 90 lakh, 90 thousand and 478,” Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said yesterday. Replying to a question from opposition bench member M Rustom Ali

Farazi of Pirojpur in the Jatiya Sangsad, the minister said the government has also distributed 1 crore, 6 lakh, 68 thousand and 388 directories among teachers from 2010 to 2018. “The government has included pre-primary students under the free textbooks programme from 2014 academic year,” Nahid informed the House.

Besides, the government for the first time distributed 9,703 textbooks on brail category among 1,231 blind challenged students in the academic year of 2017, he said, adding that in this way, the government distributed 8,405 brail based textbooks during the current 2018.

Besides, the government distributed 77,282 textbooks among 24,641 ethnic (Small Niree gosthi) students aimed at expanding of education in all sectors, the minister said.

Nahid, however, informed the House that the government provided Taka 4 thousand, 6 hundred, 15 crore, 54 lakh and 39 thousand as stipend among 2,55,34,151 students from 2009-10 to 2016-17 financial year.

He said the government has also given Taka 411 crore, 16 lakh, 48 thousand, 9 hundred and 40 as stipend among 7,46,192 bachelor and similar level students under the Prime Minister’s Education Assistant Trust.