Educational institutions from pre-primary to secondary level celebrated the book festival, with active participation of students who received books. Thousands of students were seen holding books in their hands, smiling and cheering to express their joy on receiving the books. Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid yesterday inaugurated the distribution of free books among students on the Government Laboratory High School premises in the capital, where thousands of students from different schools assembled to receive books. “It’s a mammoth task to print books and send them to educational institutions in remote areas. There is no record in the world of distributing books on the very first day of the year,” said the Education Minister. “We may be poor economically, but our children are not poor in education,” he added. Earlier, Primary and Mass Education Minister Mostafizur Rahman inaugurated distribution of books at the city’s National Bangla Government Primary School.