The Ministry of Education in Nepal has given permission to private publishers to print primary school textbooks across all development regions due to the Janak Education Materials Center's consistent failure to deliver textbooks on time. Private publishers will now print textbooks for grades 1-5 in the Central, Western, and Mid-Western regions as well as higher grades in other regions. This comes after millions of students were left without books two weeks into the last academic year due to delays. The General Manager of JEMC criticized the decision, saying the government is not supporting its own publication house and is instead promoting the private sector.

1. Private publishers to print primary school textbooks
Following invariable failure of the Janak Education Materials Center (JEMC) to deliver school
textbooks on time, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has given permission to private sector
publishers to print primary school textbooks in all five development regions of the country.
The MoE currently allows the private sector publishers to print the textbook of grade 1-8 in the
Eastern Development Region and grade 1-3 in the Far-western Development Region. However,
the private sector will be printing books for grade 1-5 for the new academic session in the
remaining Central, Western and Mid-Western Development Region as well, officials said.
The delay in printing adequate number of books had left millions of students without books even
after two weeks of the start of the new academic session in April. JEMC has failed to print and
deliver books on time for the past six years when the government announced that it would
provide textbooks of primary-level for free.
MoE has estimated that a total of 5.9 million sets of textbooks will be required for the students of
public schools in the next academic session.
JEMC General Manager Anil Kumar Jha criticized the government´s move to give permission to
print the textbooks to the private sector publishers. He said the government is not doing anything
to improve its own publication house and is instead promoting the private sector. He said JEMC
could close down if the government continued to snatch away its business.