Parents seek schools’ help to reduce cost of books
Friday, June 10, 2011
SCHOOLS need to do more to help reduce the cost of books for families, a group of concerned parents has claimed.
They want teachers and principals to use less workbooks that can’t be re-used and a system where textbooks that have to be bought can be ordered in bulk to reduce the financial burden.
Margaret Finn is one of the group of parents from more than a handful
of Mayo schools who have been meeting since last month to get the issue
addressed.
"I have a son in third class and another in fifth
but the issue is the same in so many other schools. Their books have
cost us around €300 a year for a few years now," she said.
Ms
Finn’s husband, Michael, is out of work and the family from Carnaculla
near Swinford is in receipt of social welfare. "We have three older
children who are finished school, but for most families, these kind of
costs weren’t such a big issue when everything was going well," Ms Finn
said.
She welcomed Education Minister Ruairí Quinn’s
announcement this week that he is seeking a meeting with book publishers
to raise the concerns of parents and other organisations, particularly
about the regular changes to books.
He wants to see if his
department can help reduce the number of new editions being published,
as more and more families seek help from St Vincent de Paul and other
groups with the cost of sending children back to school.
But
Margaret agrees with the minister’s belief that schools have a strong
role to play by taking a more cost-conscious approach to book selection
for their pupils.
"Our appeal is to teachers to consider the
hardship people are in at the moment and try to avoid switching from one
textbook to another every year or getting children to write in
workbooks," she said.
"They’re all using workbooks in nearly
every subject, except maybe English. But they have to be thrown away at
the end of the year, even though everybody is hard pressed nowadays."
Ms Finn also suggested that big savings could be achieved if books
were ordered centrally through the Department of Education or by big
groups of schools instead of individual orders for the same book from
hundreds of schools around the country.
"Schools should simply
bring back the old system of children returning books and selling them
second-hand to the next class. Or else allow the pupils to write answers
in copybooks so the workbooks can be used again, that’s what’s really
hiking up the costs for parents — when the kids are made to write in the
workbooks.
"So many schools are getting green flags for recycling but so few books are being re-used anymore," she said.
* Margaret asked for other parents’ groups who wish to widen the Mayo
campaign to a national one to contact her on 087 2501450.