Why do Schools Change the Prescribed Text Books Every Year?
By mercuryman3a
@mercuryman3a (2477)
India
February 13, 2009 9:52am CST
I find that most schools change the prescribed text books every year. This not only puts a strain on the students who try to get second hand books, but also on teachers,who have to get used to the new books every year. is this a nexus between the school management and the publishers of school books? well before the end of the session, book publishers start making rounds of schools and giving sample books which they want introduced in the new session. unscrupulous school managements without going into the pros and cons of the books invariably go in for the books whose publishers give the maximum rebate to the school.
This si really irritating and bad. is there some rule to stop this sort of nexus between school management and publishers of school books?
2 responses
@cambiste (1244)
• India
13 Feb 09
Well, schools have to be updated with the latest technology. And technology changes every year - more rapidly in the past 3 years.
It has nothing to do with the board members and the publishers.
The rapidly changing technology, economy, and the change in the knowledge needs for a student - all this contributes to changing the texts.
in our college too, we have to buy the later versions and editions by the same author and our syllabus keeps changing.
Happy mylotting.
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
13 Feb 09
I agree with you about text books dealing with technology but, other than that, there's no good reason to change every year. Biology, Chemistry, Accounting, Psycology, American History, etc. don't change every year. Programming in Visual Basic, C, C++ and UNIX doesn't change every year either.
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
13 Feb 09
When I was in college this irritated the he11 out of me because not only did I have to spend more purchasing a new text book instead of a second hand one from the Book Store, I was also unable to sell the book I had just finished using the previous semester back to the Book Store. Those books cost upwards of $100 each and are a strain on any student's budget. Not every educational department at my school participated in this but there were enough who did and I think it's underhanded and wrong. There's really no rule to stop this but students can complain and bring their dissatisfaction to light via the school and local newspapers.
