Naveen orders free textbooks for pvt Odia medium schools

Bhubaneswar: Odisha government on Thursday decided to distribute free textbooks to students of all private and non-aided Odia medium schools across the State from next academic year. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik approved the proposal to provide free textbooks to students of Classes I to VIII from the 2024-25 academic year under the government's 5T initiative, the CMO said.

This will benefit about five lakh students of 3,620 private and non-aided Odia medium schools. The State will have to bear an additional expenditure of Rs 9.43 crore per year for this scheme.

The State government was providing free textbooks for the government-run schools. It took the decision to do the same for private and non-aided Odia medium schools after noticing that their students too perform well in the annual High School Certificate (HSC) examinations and demonstrate their skills in various fields.