Students of classes six to ten have to buy photocopies of old English version textbooks at much higher prices while most of the photocopied books are obscure and with missing chapters, teachers said.

NCTB officials, however, said printing process of around 10 lakh books of 58 subjects for classes six to ten is now going on and the printing and binding of the new books will be complete by the end of the current month.

NCTB Chairman Prof Yusuf Farooq, who attributed the unusual delay mainly to correction of huge errors, rewriting and translation of a number of books, said, "We had to translate anew 23 books which ate up a lot of time. Besides, we have to check and recheck the earlier editions which are full of errors and with missing chapters."

"At the eleventh hour we had to rewrite the history of the Liberation War for different books including Bengali, social science and civics as the education ministry directed us to correct the books," he added.

NCTB delivery department officials said the printing process of the English version books began late and additional time is required as lots of spelling mistakes and other errors have to be corrected before go for final print.

Students of Biam Model School and College, one of the government-approved English medium schools in the capital, said there are no English versions of some books, especially on Hindu and Christian religions and a few chapters of certain books in Bengali were missing in their English translations.

For example, English version general science book of class nine has 25 chapters although the Bengali version has 26 chapters. English version general science book of class seven has 23 chapters while the Bengali version has 25 chapters.

Students of the English medium branch of Viqarunnisa Noon School said they face problems with the photocopies of old books, as the copies are obscure while several chapters are missing.

Guardians have to pay exorbitant prices to buy photocopies of the books. "Students bought photocopies of Islam Shikkha of class six for Tk 120 to Tk 150 but the price of the book was only Tk 25," said Sayma Banu, principal of Biam Model School and College.

Besides, students are learning backdated and wrong information by reading the old books or photocopies, she said.

Shabnam Khan, a senior teacher of the English medium section of Viqarunnisa Noon School, said non-availability of the textbooks is also causing problems for the teachers in imparting education.

Around 50 thousand students from classes one to ten are now studying in government-approved English medium schools, and around 20 thousand of them are at the secondary level, education ministry sources said.

In the capital, several educational institutions including Saint Joseph High School, Rajuk Uttara Model School and College, Viqarunnisa Noon School, Biam Model School and College and Mohammadpur Preparatory High School have English medium sections.

English version NCTB textbooks are also followed in all of the 12 cadet schools across the country and in several schools in many districts including Chittagong, Rangpur and Rajshahi.

Earlier, the NCTB published for the primary level around 6.5 lakh English version books of 33 subjects including English, mathematics, social science, general science and religious studies, NCTB sources said.