Dhaka: Like the previous years, Textbook Festival Day 2017 will be celebrated across the country on 1 January, marking the distribution of new textbooks among the students of schools and madrasas.

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid will inaugurate the festival in the capital’s Government Laboratory School through distributing new sets of textbooks among students, said a handout on Wednesday.

The government will distribute nearly 36,21,82,285 textbooks among students of pre-primary to secondary level for 2017 academic session across the country.

The government this year printed textbooks in five ethnic languages.  Textbooks printed in Braille method will be distributed among challenged students.

The Education Ministry has already completed all-out preparation to celebrate the Textbook Festival Day, the handout said.

In 2010, the government began distributing free textbooks among students of secondary schools. Free distribution of textbooks among the primary school students began in 1981.