No nation can achieve sustainable development without providing its citizens — poor and rich — basic education. The previous governments of our country thus rightly took up initiatives to encourage education at the primary and secondary levels, one of such initiatives being free distribution of textbooks to the primary school students. However, the incumbent military-controlled interim government, instead of giving more emphasis on education, appears to want to hinder children from gaining education. Its abrupt decision to stop supplying textbooks to six categories of primary schools, accounting for about a million students, was a most callous decision. This decision not only reveals the incumbents' utter insincerity but also their incompetence. The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education has decided to exclude certain categories of primary schools from free textbook distribution a month into the academic year. There might be a number of reasons for the authorities to take such a decision, some of which may be rational and hence worthy of discussion. But it can in no way be accepted that they took so long to notify the school authorities. The report also points out that the thousands of students affected by this callous decision are unlikely to acquire these textbooks before March as there are no textbooks available in the market for students of those schools. Those officials of the primary and mass education ministry did not find it worthwhile to inform either the school authorities or the National Curriculum and Textbook Board of their intention earlier so that they had sufficient time to make alternative arrangements. Now the students are suffering for no fault of their own and are unlikely to be able to finish their syllabus on time. It was only a couple of days ago that the authorities are yet to provide any of the over 80,000 primary schools with modified textbooks. It appears to us that most of our policymakers and those at the helm of affairs in the relevant government ministries have not yet actually grasped the importance of education. The government is duty-bound to make arrangements and provide facilities for all to acquire basic education and are expected to take severe actions against those responsible for creating obstacles. We urge the government to take immediate steps against those whose insincerity and incompetence have caused the drastic deterioration of the quality of education.

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