The New Nation - Internet Edition

Sheikh Arif Bulbon

The prices of stationery materials and recommended books for secondary and primary classes of non-government English and Bengali medium schools and kindergartens are exorbitant.

Parents and guardians of the students of many English and Bengali medium schools in Dhaka said that costs of the books and stationeries were higher than that of the previous years.

Although there was no specific reason for the price hike, some bookshops in the city were pampering in profit making and maintaining an unholy nexus with some schools, they said.

Meanwhile, guardians also blamed the schools for their sheer commercial attitude, which according to them, are preoccupied with doing business rather than providing a standard education.

Most of the private schools were profiting, selling books and forms to one or two particular shops on contract basis, they said.

Mehrin A Mahbub, working in an NGO and mother of six-year old child, said that she had bought new books and other education materials from one or two particular shops at Dhanmondi for her kid who read at a kindergarten school in Dhanmondi.

"I did not have the option to cross check the prices in other shops because the prescribed books and notebooks with the school's name on their cover pages were found in those particular shops," she said.

Some schools also provide books and stationeries from the school office, and collect money with other charges from the students at the beginning of the year.

Another parent claimed that some bookshops were selling books and stationeries at fixed prices to make money, conniving with the schools.

All kinds of educational materials like white paper, note books, pens, pencils and other things are selling at high prices in almost all the stationary shops in the city.

A stationery shop owner at the Nilkhet book market admitted that all types of educational materials were selling at a higher price than that of two or three months back.

In fact, sometimes price of stationary materials goes higher because the wholesale price is higher.

While this correspondent visiting different shops in the city it was found that the white papers of common size were selling at Tk 16 to 18 per 'dista,' each note book of 120 pages in white or roller print at Tk 25 to Tk 30, notebooks of 200 pages at Tk 43 to Tk 45 each, and notebooks of 300 pages were selling at Tk 60 to Tk 64 each.

Different brands of pencils, pens, geometry boxes, sharpeners, erasers and other things were selling at different prices, depending on the sellers' demands.