Dhaka: The Textbook Festival, marking the distribution of free textbooks among school and madrasa students, was kicked off across the country on Tuesday morning.

Millions of schoolchildren have joined the festivity at schools and madrasas across the country to receive books free of cost for their new classes on the first day of the new year, reports the UNB.

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid began the handing over of newly printed books among students at Azimpur Government Girls’ School and College around 9:30am.

Later around 11:00am, Primary and Mass Education Minister Mostafizur Rahman Fizar started distributing textbooks to pre-primary and primary students at Dhaka University’s central playground.  

Earlier on December 24, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina formally inaugurated the distribution of free textbooks.

The government started the Textbook Festival nine years ago, by distributing the books among students across the country as a gift for the New Year.

The government has printed 35,21,97,822 copies of textbooks for the students of primary and secondary schools, Ebtedai and Dakhil madrasas and technical institutes, according to officials of National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB).

Over 9.88 crore copies are for primary schools and 18 crore are for secondary ones.

The government has spent Tk 1,082 crore for printing and distributing the books.