A booklist of problems within our schools

Sep 04, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – In the old days, parents used to begin as early as February to set aside money to cater for the purchase of school uniforms and supplies for the new school years commencing in September.
Most poor parents cannot afford to buy all the things that are needed for the new school year from their 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 PPP/C introduced the students’ cash grant in what was viewed as means of enticing votes. But it was welcomed by parents because it went some way in helping them get their children ready for the new school year.
Outfitting a child for the new school year is a costly exercise. BATA is not around nor is Yasin’s still in existence. And even if they were, many students would rebel against having to wear yachting boots to school or wear uniforms made from cloth obtained at a bargain centre.
Many years ago, a young school girl committed suicide because her mother went and bought a non-brand name boots for her to attend school. These are the sort of pressures which are placed on children and which are being transferred onto parents.
But there is another ‘scheme’ which is taking place and which requires attention. It concerns the booklists which parents are given each academic year.
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.
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 term.
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 selected 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 selected 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 textbook 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.
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 book 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.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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