Every summer parents all over the island face the same problem – acquiring new school books for the forthcoming scholastic year. It is about time the authorities take a stand on the matter.

Every year or two, schools insist on changing most of the books required for the same school grades. They deprive parents of the opportunity of passing on these books to younger brothers and sisters or of simply giving or selling them to someone else.

I find it hard to believe that the curriculum changes so much from year to year. Should we be changing the curriculum so often? What is causing schools to change these books so frequently?

Furthermore, while these schools insist that all children acquire these often very expensive and overpriced books, we often discover by the end of the year that the children sometimes never make use of them. They are left unopened and the teacher never even refers to them.

The government has already tried to tackle the problem of monopolies in the sale of school uniforms. Maybe it should also tackle this ongoing racket in school books.