KARACHI: The academic year in schools across Sindh started in April but despite the passage of around two months, there is a persistent shortage of textbooks for classes one to matric as hardly any class’s complete course pack is available in the market.

A visit to the Urdu Bazaar has shown that there is a particular shortage of mathematics, English, biology, Urdu and Islamic studies books at most stores while even other books are in short supply.

Parents along with their children could be seen waiting in lines at major bookshops with the hope to get the course books but the salesmen told them that either one or another book was not in the stock. Therefore, they were asked to come again after a few days.

A sole distributer there told Dawn that right now, there was no complete course pack available for class one to matric as textbooks were not being printed in sufficient numbers.

STBB has issued 2.1m books thus far against the demand of 4.5m; education dept spokesperson says power loadshedding affects printing

A parent, whose son is a class two student, said the school where his son studied used both the Sindh Textbook Board (STBB) and Oxford University Press books. “But every year I face this issue that the complete course pack is not available. And it’s causing a lot of trouble. There are long queues of people at Urdu Bazar and I have to wait there in heat only to find out that one or the other book is still not available.”

He also explained that the private book publishers with the aim of “generating sales volume” either change books or some chapters in them in order to ensure that used books could not become useful again for other students next year.

He believed that this tactic of publishers also contributing to the shortage to new books in the market.

Madiha Ali, mother of Mohammad Rohaan, who studies in class eight, explained how long they had to wait to get the course books and that despite the wait they had to arrange used books as new ones were not available.

“We had been trying for the last week of April but couldn’t get the course pack. Many books were not available. Somehow we found second-hand books at a store and purchased those,” she said.

Another parent asked that if the provincial government was not able deliver books on time, which happens almost every year, then why it started academic year in this time of the year and announced distribution of books.

When contacted, Atif Vighio, a spokesperson for the Sindh education department, said that the STBB had issued total 2.1 million books thus far. However, the total market demand of books is 4.5m, he added.

About why there is the shortage of books, he said that the primary reason behind it was power loadshedding which affected printing.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2025