The Jharkhand government will provide an additional set of books, other than textbooks, to all students of Class IX in government schools of the state.

Chief minister Hemant Soren approved on Wednesday a proposal of the state’s school education and literacy department for the same that will come into effect once it gets a nod from the state cabinet.

The chief minister’s office (CMO) said around 2.93 lakh students who were currently studying in various government schools of the state would benefit from the scheme.

Besides essential textbooks that are supplied to students free of cost, all those studying in Class IX would get an additional set of books comprising an atlas, a bi-lingual dictionary, a book on general knowledge and a book of English grammar, the CMO informed.

The scheme is aimed at overall development of the students by enhancing their knowledge base and also motivating them for appearing at competitive examinations in future, it added.

There were 292,760 students studying in Class IX in government schools in the state at present, the CMO further informed, adding 133,982 among them were boys while 1,58,778 were girls.

The decision of the government, however, evoked a mixed response.

“It’s nice to know that the government decided to provide an additional set of helpful books to Class IX students,” said Gyanottam Widhi, a high school teacher in Khunti district. Such books, if used properly, will certainly help enhance the students’ knowledge base, he said.

“I also appreciate the initiative but such books will be helpful only if those are distributed on time,” commented another teacher, who preferred not to be named. He added it was often found that textbooks were distributed too late and that defeated the purpose.

“I also appreciate the move of the Jharkhand government as it’s probably the first Hindi speaking state to do so but they should instead focus on primary education,” said Kashinath Chatterjee, national general secretary of the Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti that ran 200 learning centres for kids in Jharkhand during the pandemic.

Their recent survey covering 15,000 primary students across 100 panchayats in the state found that 60 per cent of them lagged behind in studies during the pandemic, Chatterjee said. Many such students in Dumka, Giridih, Palamau and Garhwa districts had also left studies.

“Something must be done urgently for enrolling those students and making up their learning gap,” Chatterjee said.