Over 90pc Students Depend On Unauthorised Guidebooks: Study

A study unveiled that the primary and secondary students' reliance on unauthorised "guidebooks" and "notebooks" increased massively in last year, According to the Education Watch Study 2023, about 92 percent of primary students and about 93 percent of secondary students depended on commercial guidebooks, Mostafizur Rahaman, a research team member, said while presenting a key note at a press conference.

The education watch group, a civil society platform of researchers and activists in the education sector, organised the press conference on the study titled "School Education in Bangladesh: Post-pandemic resilience and sustainability" at the CIRDAP auditorium in the capital.

"The study identified a widespread reliance on guidebooks as a compensation for inadequate classroom instruction… commercial guidebooks, which are aggressively marketed with incentives, offered to schools and teachers to encourage students to purchase them," said the report.

"This practice remains consistent across various geographical clusters. Guidebooks, instead of being an optional aid for students, have become an essential tool for both students and teachers as a substitute for classroom teaching," it added. The reliance of students on commercial guidebooks are on the rise. It was a 13 percent increase for primary students and 10.5 percent rise for secondary students compare to 2022.

The education watch report of 2022 said that 79 percent of primary and 82.5 percent of secondary students used commercially produced guidebooks to prepare their lessons and exams. Note-Books (Prohibition) Act, 1980 prohibit printing, publication, import, distribution and sale of notebooks on textbooks for primary schools and secondary schools up to Class VIII. The law stipulated imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years, or a fine which may extend to Tk 25,000, or with both, for publishing and distribution and sale of notebooks.

In March in 2008, a High Court bench gave the verdict that not only notebooks but also guidebooks would be banned.CAMPE Executive Director Rasheda K Choudhury while talking at the press conference said that they will officially share the study with the authorities concerned.