Parents of students of international Indian schools in Riyadh have urged the concerned Saudi authority's intervention to curb the unreasonably high price of textbooks. International schools in Saudi Arabia that follow the curriculum of the New Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) import stocks of textbooks during each academic year. However, this year it appears that the imported stocks fell short creating a huge gap between supply and demand. Privately owned bookstores took undue advantage of the situation and raised the price of textbooks almost ten times more than the original price in Indian rupees. Mansour Ali, a father of three children studying at an international community school, said he missed the opportunity to buy the textbooks from the concerned school and that has cost him dearly. He said the textbooks sold at the International Indian School, Riyadh (IISR) are cheaper than the books available in the open market. “I was forced to pay 10 times more than if I had bought the textbooks in the school store. It was simply because my children were not able to buy the textbooks from the school store on time, which is at the start of the academic year in March,” he said. Akhtar Hussain, another parent, said he was shocked to find the unreasonably high price of textbooks in the open market. He said he checked the price list of a set of textbooks for his child sold at the school store and found that they were being sold for just SR80. He said he had to buy two books from a privately owned store and for those he paid SR80, “which is 10 times more than what they cost in the school store.” “Saudi authorities should take note of the unscrupulous booksellers who are taking undue advantage of the situation. There is an open black market in operation here,” he said. According to a member of the IISR managing committee (MC), the school decided to import about 75 percent of the required textbooks. “We took this decision because each academic year some of the parents going on annual vacation bring with them textbooks from India.” However, this academic year imported stocks of textbooks ran out quickly. He said the MC has placed a fresh order with the book supplier, but that it would take some time before the next shipment arrives for this academic year. “The school sells textbooks on a no-loss no-profit basis except to meet the cost of the books and cover expenses such as overtime payment for staff who work extra hours at the store,” he said. Parents say the concerned Saudi authorities should crack down on unscrupulous booksellers who are selling the textbooks at unreasonably high prices. Parents have also urged the school management to order textbooks printed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training, which is an apex resource organization set up by the Indian government and supplies textbooks at better prices than other Indian publishers. CBSE advises schools to follow NCERT textbooks, preferably from XI to XII standards. Another advantage of teaching NCERT textbooks is that the books can easily be downloaded from the Internet free of cost, a parent said. “But for reason known only to them, the school management imports textbooks from private publishers,” he said. About 10,000 students are enrolled at IISR alone while a number of other privately-owned international schools also follow the CBSE curriculum which has created a huge demand for textbooks that often ends up in a “crisis” each academic year.
