Guwahati: The Assam Higher Secondary Education Council will introduce a new compulsory subject, Swodex Adhyoyon, comprising history and geography of the state, for all streams from this academic session, council chairman Dayananda Borgohain said on Thursday.

Addressing a gathering at the inauguration of free textbooks distribution scheme for class XII students at a programme at B. Borooah College here, Borgohain said a large number of students performing poorly or failing in the class XII examination has become a trend.

He said the council will introduce another compulsory subject on agriculture in the rural areas from this year. "For that, we will train 500 science teachers. We are also planning to introduce a subject on handloom from next year in schools in the rural areas," he added.

There has been a demand to make history and geography compulsory in school curriculum. However, it was not implemented on the grounds that it will be an overburden for the students.

Borgohain said the council has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Art of Living Foundation through which six skill development centres will be opened in the state this year. Next year, every district will have such a centre.

The free-textbook distribution programme, which cost Rs 47 crore to the state government, was inaugurated by education minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya. He said the education department is taking measures to send the books to students in each district.

Altogether 6,95,816 class XII students will receive the free books. The process for distribution of books to class XI students is on.

The state government had introduced the free-book distribution scheme in the 2016-17 financial year.

Bhattacharjya said the government has not taken any decision on delinking class XII from degree colleges. "We will have to sit together. It was too late to take a decision on the issue for this academic session. We will take a decision next year," he said.