Hyderabad: As the new academic year 2018-2019 gets underway, parents in the city will get messages from their children's schools urging them to buy books and uniforms from the school.
This is in clear violation of Government Order number 36 which prohibits schools from selling school bags, books and similar accessories. The order was issued after parents complained about the exorbitant prices charged by schools for these items.
Bhashyam School in Malkajgiri was booked for selling books in the school premises last week. No other school has been booked though all private schools are doing the same, allege parents.
S Srinivas Reddy, president, Telangana Recogised School Managements Associations, said, “The officers often target the small budget schools for selling books and avoid raiding the big corporate schools because they have a direct link with the government. There was a discussion in the fee regulatory committee about this. The committee has recommended a books counter in the school, or to display the list of books on the notice board as sometimes books are not available in the market.”
He added that if books are sold in the school it should be at MRP, or at prices recommended by the committee. But the recommendations have not yet been approved by the state government.
“It is wrong to force parents to buy books from schools; parents should be free to choose whether they want to buy books from schools or outside,” he added.
K Srujana, a city parent, said, “All the schools are openly selling books, which is against the law. The books are marked upto 300 per cent margins. Books available for Rs 2,100 outside are charged Rs 6,500 in the school. Are the authorities sleeping? We should start filing criminal cases.”
Ashish Naredi, executive member, Hyderabad Schools Parents Associations, said, “This is selective application of law at its worst. The so called bigger and powerful schools are getting away with murder and the smaller schools with no political patronage are made to suffer. HSPA has given all the proofs required against several schools but the government is shielding them. It's a sorry state of affairs.”
According to the education department, they act only when they get complaints from parents or students.
A senior official of the education department said, “Parents should complain against the schools if the schools force them to buy books from the school at huge profits. We often raid
the schools after receiving complaints from parents so we request parents to lodge complaints with us.”
Changing patterns to squeeze money
Parents have alleged that they have received circulars for buying new uniforms from schools. Parents said some schools were changing their uniform every year.
On parent said, “We are already under pressure due to the exorbitant fee. Parents have to buy books, uniforms, even shoes from schools. There is no negotiation on the rates. Parents don’t have a choice and are forced to follow whatever the school says”.
Mr K. Venkat Sainath, member, Hyderabad Sch-ool Parents Association, said, “Earlier the students used to have the same uniform but with business interests schools are changing the uniform pattern every year and we are forced to buy them. Some schools have two to three different sets of uniforms in a week, including one for sports and one all white.”
He said shoes which are available at '300 to '500 in the market are sold at prices ranging from '1,200 to '2,500 at the school counters.
“As per the law, there should be three vendors details provided to the parents so that they can bargain and get discounts from the competition but that does not happen. Though officials ask us to complain, there is no point in doing so because higher officials never respond to our complaints.”
Asked about this, Mr S. Srinivas Reddy, president, Telangana Recogised Sch-ool Managements Associ-ations, said, “Forcing parents to buy new uniforms every year is not acceptable. Changing the uniforms quite often is also not correct. Parents should have to buy new uniforms to replace those that are old are torn. How will parents afford new uniforms every year when they have to buy two to three different types for a week.”
