Parents in despair after being forced by schools to buy books amid Covid pandemic

Vikas Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, June 3

With the School Education Department instructing recognised unaided private schools to only charge monthly tuition fees from the children amid Covid-19 pandemic, many of the schools in Jammu province are now forcing parents to buy books from particular vendors.

Parents claimed that they received a number of messages from school authorities asking them to purchase book from a particular store.

“Few days back, I received a message from the school management to collect books from a particular address. In the prevailing situation when common man is worried about how to make the ends meet, such messages make things worse,” said Jugal Singh, a parent.

“What is more surprising is that the cost of the books for a UKG student is Rs 4,000. These are unnecessary books which the school authorities are forcing the parents to purchase from the school. This is just another way of fleecing a common man,” Singh claimed.

“Depositing monthly fees has become a Herculean task for most of the parents, especially those who are dependent upon jobs and have not received salary for months. Even then they are arranging money to ensure that the monthly school fees of their children is paid in time,” added Santosh, another parent.

“We request the authorities concerned to kindly keep a tight vigil on such schools which are still making huge profits in the time of crisis by one way or the other,” she said.

Director, School Education, Jammu, Anuradha Gupta said: “We have

launched a web portal — http://schedujammu.nic.in/samadhan/ — and parents can register their complaints on this. Complaints can also be filed on dsejammu@yahoo.in. We are trying our best to address all the issues of parents.”