RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As un­em­ployed par­ents strug­gle to buy books in time for the new school term, stu­dents from the Shi­va Boys Hin­du Col­lege In­ter­act Club have start­ed a free book dri­ve to as­sist stu­dents in need.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, Club pres­i­dent Ashira Ramkissoon said since the clo­sure of Petrotrin, many par­ents were strug­gling to buy books for their chil­dren. She said the pan­dem­ic had ex­ac­er­bat­ed un­em­ploy­ment and pover­ty in many com­mu­ni­ties.

“We did this out of our good hearts be­cause we know the cost of books and how dif­fi­cult it has been for some peo­ple,” Ramkissoon said.

The vice-prin­ci­pal of Shi­va Boys Hin­du Col­lege Devi­nesh Neer­an­jan said in every class, there was an av­er­age of five stu­dents who had not re­ceived their school text­books.

He said this prob­lem was ex­pe­ri­enced by many oth­er stu­dents at sur­round­ing schools in the south­ern dis­trict.

“The Min­istry pro­vides books un­der its Schools Text­book Pro­gramme, but a lot of these books have be­come out­dat­ed," Neer­an­jan said.

He added: "We had to change the book­list a few years back. Now with COVID, we are see­ing that quite a few par­ents can­not af­ford a lot of these books."

The av­er­age cost of a sec­ondary school book is $300 and with some stu­dents do­ing be­tween eight to 12 sub­jects, Neer­an­jan said the cost of books per stu­dent is ex­treme­ly high.

“The club had a good ini­tia­tive, and we are en­cour­ag­ing them in this dri­ve so they can do­nate to the needy chil­dren. We un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion as it re­lates to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, and we know there are bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion con­straints.  We un­der­stand what the Min­istry is go­ing through so this is why we are do­ing this free book dri­ve,” he added.

Teacher co­or­di­na­tor Jaime Bir­bal who teach­es ge­og­ra­phy and en­vi­ron­men­tal sci­ence, en­cour­aged cor­po­rate T&T to sup­port the ini­tia­tive.

She said sim­i­lar dri­ves were be­ing done by In­ter­act Clubs through­out the coun­try.

“We are hop­ing that the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion can up­date a lot of text­books. We are al­so ap­peal­ing to well-wish­ers to get in­volved, be­cause as you know, it takes a vil­lage to raise a child," Bir­bal said.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the pres­i­dent of the Pe­nal/Debe Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Ram­per­sad Sieu­raj, to en­quire whether the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty can as­sist in the book dri­ve.

He said the Cham­ber has not been ap­proached but he not­ed that it was a worth­while ven­ture. He said dis­cus­sions will be held to pro­vide sup­port to the Club in its quest to pro­vide all needy chil­dren with school­books.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gadsy-Dol­ly said there are plans to up­grade text­books that are pro­vid­ed by the Text­book Man­age­ment Unit of the Min­istry.

"We just closed the RFP for the sup­ply of ebooks to the MOE. This is the di­rec­tion in which we are head­ing. Those will be eval­u­at­ed, and fur­ther de­ci­sions will be tak­en on the ba­sis of what has been sub­mit­ted," she said.

Any­one want­i­ng to do­nate or re­ceive free books from the Shi­va Boys Hin­du Col­lege can con­tact Jaime Bir­bal at 755-4042 or 372-8822.