Parents in a bind over lack of books

Updated on: Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Parents of students awaiting the Samacheer Kalvi textbooks are wor ried that a further delay in distribution of books will lead to loss of more school days. "The children have been going to school without textbooks for more than a month and they have only been taught topics of general knowledge," said K Pugazhendi, a parent.

While some are ready to wait for schools to hand out books, most are try ing to procure copies from other sources Ravi Book House in Mylapore has re ceived more than ten calls this week en quiring about the new books and guides "However, it will be more than a week before we receive any copies of the text books. They will be supplied to us only after schools get them," said the store manager. The shop already has Samacheer Kalvi guides for Class six and hopes to get the other guides within two days of receiving the textbooks.

In some schools, parents paid for the textbooks at the beginning of the aca demic year and now, have no option but wait for the schools to source them. "We paid 2,500 for textbooks and notebooks The school has given some matricula tion books of mathematics and gram mar," says G Ramalingam, a parent at a matriculation school. "We hope the schools don't charge us more for the new set of books," he said.

Matriculation schools, however, are yet to place order for the books as they are awaiting the outcome of the gov ernment's appeal against the high court ruling. "We are waiting for the govern ment to make a formal announcement on the issue before we order the books," said N Vijayan, correspondent of Zion Matriculation School in Selaiyur.
Parents and students don't even have the option of downloading the books from the internet anymore. The Samacheer Kalvi books were earlier available on the government education website pallikalvi.in, but were removed after the new government amended the Uniform School Education Act.

Times of India

Parents in a bind over lack of books

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