Textbooks now so expensive
WITH the start of every new school year, parents are faced with a variety of expenses, having to buy the necessary stationery, schoolbags, uniforms and shoes.
However, the major expense is school books.
The cost of a single textbook can be anything from $300 to $2,000. Sometimes books are purchased and never used. Bookstores make substantial profits, especially in July and August. That is when parents' complaints are at their loudest. Parents with a number of children at school, face paying a particularly high books bill.
Each year, in most cases, the contents of a textbook are the same as they were the year before and yet the annual price rise is at least 15 per cent. Working and middle-class parents have to buy second-hand books. My only suggestion to parents faced with this annual headache, is for more of them to opt for second-hand books.
ASTRID MACABASCO Kowloon
