Thirty schools directly administered by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kolkata will discontinue the practice of selling textbooks on their campuses and allow students to buy them from anywhere they choose.
"We will hand over a book list to students and they will buy the course materials from outside. Text books won't be sold from the campus any more. We will recommend names of some book stores but students can also buy the books from elsewhere," principal of Loyola High School here Father Rodney Borneo told PTI today.
"But the recommended book store will have to pass on the 20-25 per cent discount benefit to the students which the institutions will forego to give the guardians some financial relief," he said.
The decision to discontinue the practice of selling textbooks was taken when the Archdiocese members met West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had suggested that children and their guardians should not be saddled with the high cost of books, Borneo, also a member of the education board of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kolkata, said.
The education board of the archdiocese at a recent meeting had asked the schools under its administration to completely stop the practice of selling books from the institutions, its official said.
Asked about MHRD Secretary Anil Swarup's announcement that schools will be asked to prescribe NCERT books for the students as an alternative option as well as publications from outside, he said "It is a welcome idea. But we haven't yet received any official communication in this regard.
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