DUSHANBE, August 29, Asia-Plus -- Tajikistan’s Ministry of Education has published a series of new textbooks at the threshold of a new school year.

Sohibnazar Safarov, an official with the Ministry of Education, says they have published new textbooks for Tajik-language schools.  “Thus, we have published textbooks on the Russian language for 6 ^th and 8 ^th forms, informatics basics for 8 ^th , 9 ^th , 10 ^th and 11 ^th forms, Tajik language, chemistry and algebra for 10 ^th form, and geography for 9 ^th form,” Mr. Safarov said.  

In the meantime, he has noted that for full provision schools with textbooks on 139 subjects they have to publish 171 items of textbooks.  “However, only 91 items of textbooks have been published since 2000,” the Asia-Plus interlocutor noted.  

“37 other items are still at the stage of publication, and they expected to be published and distributed to schools throughout the country by the end of this year,” said Sohibnazar Safarov, “At present the Education Ministry is considering another 16 textbooks.” 

At the same time, Mr. Safarov noted that schools experienced shortage of textbooks on foreign languages, including the Arabic, French and German languages.   

The ministry is also working on provision Uzbek-, Kyrgyz- and Turkmen-language schools with textbooks.  A special working group is engaged in translation from some textbooks from Tajik into Kyrgyz and Turkmen languages, according to Safarov.   

All textbooks have been published under financial support of international organizations such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, OPEC, and the Islamic Development Bank.  According to Sohibnazar Safarov, the national budget has provided some 600,000 Somonis for publishing textbooks.