As new academic year takes up, it marks the beginning of new adventure, new challenges, new friendships and new learnings. Alongside, students also stay excited for their new classes, friends, books, stationeries & accessories etc. Taking this as an advantage, Private Schools in Chandigarh are forcing parents and students to buy new set of books and accessories, that too from designated bookstores.
Although schools are directed to prescribe NCERT books for all classes by UT Education Department in 2018, still they issued a list of extra books and stationery. This adds as an extra burden on the parents as the prices of books are already high.
Store owners and Private Schools in Chandigarh on alert
As the new academic session starts, most parents have one common complaint i.e.- schools are forcing them to buy books and uniforms from selected shops at inflated prices. Whether there is a change in syllabus or not, every student is asked to buy a new and complete set of books and stationery. This adds to extra study material to students as well as extra financial load on parents.
According to the parents, the several Private Schools in Chandigarh have tie-ups with the stores. Only the selected stores sell the books and uniforms of the schools, rest stores do not stock them. This leads to huge chaos and rush at the stores resulting in long ques and increased waiting time.
According to UT Education Department, they had issued directions for all schools to not to ask parents to buy books or uniforms from a particular shop. Rather the parents should have freedom to purchase the stuff from anywhere. In 2018, the UT Education Department had directed schools to prescribe only NCERT books for all subjects, except language and mathematics for classes 1 and 2 and language, EVS and mathematics for classes 3 to 5. However, parents claimed that private schools continue to prescribe extra books.
UT Director School Education (DSC) Harsuhinderpal Singh Brar said, “strict action will be taken against the schools violating the directions.” The UT Education Department had directed the schools to only recommend books that are widely available at bookstores. Additionally, the schools were instructed to recommend books that are available with at least four bookstores in the city to avoid the over crowding at a single store. Furthermore, the Private Schools in Chandigarh were asked to publish the complete book list, so that books that will be required later during the academic session don’t have to be purchased at the beginning.
The high cost of books is the major concern of the parents. They have to pay more in the name of additional stationery. Parents are compelled to buy the entire package or set of books, which is already kept prepared by the store vendors. The prices of these sets are fixed and the vendors refuse to give loose books. The UT Education Department and UT Excise and Taxation Department have already partnered and are keeping a check on the bookstores and Private Schools in Chandigarh to avoid any malpractice.
Summarizing Thoughts
Education industry today has become a business and source of earning profit. Private Schools in Chandigarh are in tie-ups with the designated stores to sell the books and uniforms with inflated and fixed prices. This will ultimately lead to the financial burden on the common man. Government must investigate the matter and should fix a subsidized price as education is a basic right. Nobody must be deprived of education because of high fees or books costs.
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