As pvt school admissions begin, rush grows to buy books, uniform

It is that time of the year again when parents have to rush to shops, stand in long queues and burn a hole in their pockets to buy new uniforms and books for the new academic session. As admissions begin in private schools, the hassles for a new set of books and uniforms bring new challenges for parents who throng shops in city, with stress quite visible on their faces.

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Despite repeated warnings and efforts, most private schools violate the guidelines and ‘suggest’ parents to buy uniforms and books from specific shops. The District Education Office has received four complaints till now against private schools for not complying with orders and recommending particular shops to parents for uniforms and books. DEO (Secondary) Harbhagwant Singh said that they have asked the schools in question to reply to the show-cause notice. “We have marked the complaints for action. At first, the schools are given a strict warming and later fined if they are found guilty of non-compliance,” he said. In aggravated action, the NOC of the school is also put under review.

Looking at complaints coming in from parents, the DEO office is also planning to form a task force to conduct an inspection of shops that are affiliated to specific schools.

Meanwhile, major uniform and book shops in the city are witnessing a huge rush of parents. The average cost of a set of books from Nursery to Class X costs between Rs 1,000-Rs 8,000 (without art kits, stationery or notebooks) while for senior classes, it varies according to the subject. Similarly, for uniforms, parents are shelling out anything between Rs 1,200-Rs 5,000 per set, with some schools opting to do minor changes in uniform patterns. “This is a scam that private schools use to force parents to buy new uniforms every season. One of my daughters will now be going to Class I and I was hoping to use her kindergarten uniform for my younger daughter. But now, with the change in uniform, I have to buy a new one,” said Pratap Khanna, a parent.