PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board (KPTBB) has proposed to the provincial government that it should be allowed to ‘develop’ new schoolbooks and act as a publisher to save around Rs60 million paid annually to private publishers as royalties.
For this purpose, the KPTBB has also suggested to the provincial government that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook & Learning Material (KPTLM) Policy, 2017, be amended, as the existing one doesn’t allow it to publish textbooks, sources in the board told Dawn on Sunday.
The KPTBB has suggested incorporating an additional clause 3.2-B in the KPTLM policy, which states: “The textbook board is authorised to develop new textbooks under clauses 3.2 or 3.2-A, or to develop new textbooks itself and act as a publisher using its own resources, in the best public interest.”
However, the influential publishers, who get millions in royalties, have approached the authorities, asking them to stop the KPTBB from publishing its own books, the sources said.
Official says move to save around Rs60m being paid annually to private publishers as royalties
The elementary and secondary education department has moved a summary to the chief minister to place the summary before the provincial cabinet for approval.
However, the summary has not reached the chief minister over the past three months and is shuttling from one department to another, the sources said.
“The summary has yet to reach the cabinet due to the influential publishers,” an official of the textbook board said. A publisher can claim royalties on the schoolbooks for 50 to 60 years, the official added.
He further said that the private publishers were unnecessarily putting additional material to increase the size of books to get more royalties, without considering the difficulties being faced by the students.
The textbook board official said that bulky books were wasting the time of both the teachers and students.
The official said that usually the publishers hired writers and paid them once, while they got royalties from the textbook board for decades.
The official further said that if the provincial government agreed with the textbook board, then it would develop books by hiring prominent educationists, which would help produce books with quality content and save the public money.
No evidence is available to verify that the textbooks developed by private publishers are of better quality than those produced directly by the textbook board, the official said.
Moreover, the board’s limited control over review schedules causes delays in the timely availability of textbooks to students after they are developed by private publishers, the official said.
The KPTBB was established under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Textbook Board Ordinance, 1971. Its mandate was to produce and publish textbooks and supplementary reading materials from nursery classes to Grade 12.
Before the implementation of the National Textbook & Learning Material (NTLM) Policy in 2006, the textbook board developed its own textbooks under the 1971 Ordinance. However, after the 18th Amendment, the subject of education was provincialised, and the NTLM Policy was replaced with the KPTLM Policy 2017.
Clause 3.2 of KPTLM Policy 2017 binds the KPTBB to develop textbooks through private publishers against payment of royalty.
Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2026.
