Islamabad: Education Minister Zobaida Jalal on Monday urged the Text Book Boards (TBBs) of all provinces to provide quality books in time for the upcoming academic year. She told Pakistan Television that there should be no shortage of text books in markets during the new educational year. Ms. Jalal advised the boards to build their capacity for publication of textbooks as well as to seek assistance from the private sector and Pakistan Printing Corporation to fulfill the demand for textbooks.

She said the whole country was now following a standard syllabus because of which  there was a shortage of books which adversely affected students.  Ms Jalal said   the Federal Government had approved private publishers to print textbooks that were ordinarily only printed by the  provincial TBBs. She said, during the next four months, she would visit all the provinces to discuss the textbooks related issues and implementation of the deregulation policy. Responding to a question about changing the examination schedule of children as the Indo-Pak cricket series was also going to be held at the same time she said, there would be no change in the schedule and the examinations would be held on time.-APP