No takers

Ranchi, Nov. 28: There are no takers for the matriculation and intermediate syllabus printed by the Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC).

Poor awareness among schools and colleges and JAC’s lack of marketing strategy has led to a waste of Rs 6 lakh, the amount spent by JAC to print the syllabus copies. The syllabus of each subject has been priced at Rs 45.

“It may be conducting examinations, but JAC doesn’t have any experience in marketing. This is probably why the syllabus material is not reaching the educational institutions,” said Yamuna Giri, secretary of JAC.

He added around two months ago, the newspapers had carried information about the syllabus, but the schools and colleges have shown little interest in them. “We cannot force anyone to buy the syllabus from us. Moreover, it depends on the requirement of the institutions,” he said.

It was in 2006-07 that the syllabus for various streams was changed in Jharkhand. However, it was printed a year later by the council. Earlier, the task of printing syllabus and other materials used to be outsourced to external agencies through public tenders, who then had the onus of printing and marketing syllabus as well as other related text materials.

The problem began after the 2007-08 session, when the earlier council members decided to publish the syllabus on their own but, due to their improper management, it never reached the institutions and lay rotting at the council, said officials.

According to Giri, since the syllabus had not changed after 2006-07, there was no demand for the newly printed syllabus. Some schools and colleges also bought it from private publishers.

Further, the number of buyers was wrongly estimated during the time of printing. Hence, a huge amount of material was left to rot in the store and no proper attempts were taken to market them, said the JAC secretary. He said when the new council became functional, the irregularities were detected.