The new academic year began on Thursday (1 January) for secondary-level students across Bangladesh, but nearly 58 million textbooks remain undelivered due to delays in printing and distribution by the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB).

The NCTB had planned to print and distribute 300 million textbooks for primary and secondary students combined. While distribution for pre-primary and primary levels was completed by 16 December, only 156.1 million of the 214.3 million textbooks meant for secondary and Ebtedayi students had reached upazila levels by Wednesday night.

According to NCTB officials, the remaining books are expected to be delivered by mid-January. Data shows that delivery has been slowest for Classes Seven and Eight, with less than 60 percent and 50 percent of books distributed respectively.

To mitigate the impact, PDF versions of all 647 textbooks have been uploaded to the NCTB website for online access.