Sale of Marathi medium school books going down

According to the numbers shared by Balbharati,over the past three years,the number of copies of textbooks printed for Marathi school students in the state has seen a decline of about 1 crore. On the contrary,the number for English medium schools has seen an increase of over 20 lakh. For Class I,the number of books printed for Marathi medium has dipped by a lakh over the past three years. But the same for English medium has tripled.

Deputy director of education,Pune Region,Sunil Magar said,“The demand for Marathi schools has gone down. In the past two years,no new Marathi school has come up in the city.”

Balbharati prints about 19 crore books in eight languages every year for Classes I to XII. The number of books printed for Marathi medium for Class I to XII was 9.12 crore in 2009-10 which dipped to 8.23 crore in 2010-11. This year,the number is 8.19 crore,about 93 lakh less than in 2009-10. The same for English medium is 2.31 crore,2.57 crore and 2.51 crore.

“It is a well known fact that there has been a decline in the number of students taking admissions in Marathi medium schools. Globalisation and IT boom are some of the reasons guiding people to opt for English medium schools irrespective of their financial capacity or status,” said Balbharati director M R Kadam.

For Class I,Balbharati this year printed 19 lakh copies of books for Marathi schools,a lakh less than the past three years when the number was 20 lakh. But for English,the number multiplied three times from 1.5 lakh in 2009-10 to 3.5 last year and 4.5 lakh for 2011-12.

“The trend is reflecting even in schools. We have 3,725 Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools and every year we are witnessing a decline of about 5,000-10,000 students,” said District Education Board Joint Director P D Bhandare.

Semi-English medium,an option which was earlier available from Class VIII,was recently made available from Class V which is gaining popularity every year. Last year,15.5 lakh books were printed in Marathi for Class V Maths and Science. This year,the number dropped by a lakh to 14.50. However,the number of English medium books of Maths and Science for Class V was 5.50 lakh this year compared to 5.25 lakh last year.