BHOPAL: The district administration has issued instructions to all private schools to upload their school syllabus on their websites. The new academic session is expected from April 1 in most of the schools.
The accountability of ensuring that the schools have uploaded the book-list on the website has been entrusted with the district education officer, who has the power to take action against erring schools.
The schools have also been reminded of some of the existing instructions. These include one that says that books and copies sold in stationery shops should not have the name of a particular school on them. Similarly, books and stationery items will not be sold inside the schools, as well. Both these activities invite stern action against both the school and the seller.
The district administration issues instructions to private schools every year that the syllabus, including the list of all books, should be made public so that parents have the choice of buying them from any shop. But, in most of the cases, private schools prepare a list of books and hand it over to the district education officer.
The list provided to the education officer is updated after some time. This is the general practice adopted by most of the schools. It takes time for the updated list to reach small bookshops and, then, parents are told to approach select bookshops.
Considering these facts, the district administration has restricted schools from making changes to the syllabus once it is made public.
Booksellers had met the officials of the district administration in December and urged them to ensure that the schools make their book-list public for the new session, 2021-22.
The district administration has asked the private schools to release the syllabus at least a month before the new session starts.
