A booklist of problems within our schools

Jun 21, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Beginning as early as February most poor parents begin to set aside something every month to cater for the purchase of school uniforms and supplies.
A poor parent cannot afford from his earnings to buy all the things that are needed for the new school year in September from his July or August income. As such each month, beginning as early as the second month of the year, they set aside something for school uniform, supplies and of course that long list of books said to be essential for reading.
The government provides uniform assistance but every parent of school-aged children knows that that sum can hardly buy the exercise books that are now being required. And the government has now decided that both rich and poor deserve the school uniform assistance and are now sharing out the vouchers to all.
And some stinking rich parents actually collect these vouchers but are too embarrassed to make purchases with them, so they are not utilised, while there are poor parents who can do with an extra one or two vouchers but who are only allowed one per child.
Outfitting a child for the new school year is a costly exercise and then to add to that, parents still have to find sums for that long book list which they are often given.
The government is also supposed to be supplying all the required text books for the school year, but it seems as if some schools and teachers are in the practice of adding to the required texts, thus burdening parents with additional expenses in purchasing additional texts which are not supplied by the government.
This is bad enough except that there are instances where parents go to great expense, often having to ask relatives overseas to help them with these books, only to find that when the school year begins some subject teachers have a preference for other books. This means another trip to the bookstore and a bigger hole in their pockets.
But it gets even more terrible. There are instances whereby booklists are, according to reports in the media, being given out at the end of each term. This is an unconscionable demand on the pockets of poor parents.
There should be one approved booklist. No teacher should deviate from that booklist for reasons of his or her preference and no school has any right to be asking students to procure additional books at the end of each year.
Parents are often suspicious of these demands for extra books, especially when the teachers actually state where these books can be bought and when the parents discover that only a few select places have the additional texts in stock.
Parents have been known to hint that there seems to be some relationship between the demand for these additional texts and their availability at only select places.
It is time that the Ministry of Education put an end to this practice of additional booklists and especially booklists being supplied at the end of each term.
There should be one approved booklist for all levels at each school. Teachers should be consulted so that a list can be had which would find approval with teachers so that parents do not have to purchase a text only to find that additional books are requested because some teachers prefer another subject text to the one originally on the booklist.
It is patently unfair to parents to have to go through all that expense to purchase a text book for thousands of dollars only to discover that the subject teacher is not using it.
There should be standardisation of booklists for every level as far as is practicable.
This will help the government to supply as many of the books that are needed and therefore reduce the expenses on parents.
In addition, there should be an investigation as to why some schools are asking children to buy additional textbooks at the end of each term. Parents should only have to procure textbooks at the start of each academic year, not at the beginning of each term.
In the case of text books for literature, which is known as English B, only those text books recommended for the regional examinations should be used. Once a book does not fall within the recommended list, it should not be used.
It takes at least one school year for a child to become proficient with a particular text.
Therefore to ask a child to purchase a literature just for the final term shows that something is wrong because how can that child have a thorough knowledge of that book in one term and how can the entire exam question for that term be based on one book?
The Ministry of Education needs to examine these things because there are serious inconsistencies when it comes to booklists and these inconsistencies are proving costly to parents.

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