Textbook shortage and rising school costs add to parents’ burden

LAHORE: With the start of the new academic year, heavy crowds have been seen in Urdu Bazaar and at textbook shops, along with outlets providing book-covering services, as families prepare for the school term amid higher education-related expenses.

The cost of protective book covers has also gone up this year. In residential areas, educated female students, homemakers and working women have started covering books at home on a part-time basis to help meet household kitchen expenses. Many houses are displaying notices for book-covering services, while some women are also taking on paid work supplied by commercial cover shops.

The charge for applying an X-ray plastic cover to one book is between Rs75 and Rs100, while larger notebooks and registers are being covered for Rs120 to Rs130. A complete set of a student’s books can generally be covered in three to four hours.

Rising paper prices have pushed up the cost of notebooks, registers, textbooks, drawing books, practical copies and other stationery items. A basic small notebook is now priced at Rs150, a medium notebook at Rs250, and a better-quality one at Rs400. Good-quality registers are selling for Rs450, drawing books for Rs1,000, and practical copies for between Rs2,700 and Rs3,000.

Other school expenses have also increased. Uniforms are costing around Rs3,000, school shoes are priced between Rs2,500 and Rs5,000, and school bags begin at Rs1,500 for very basic quality, rising to Rs3,000 to Rs5,000 for better options. Families said admission charges differ depending on the school and class, but enrolling one child — including the first month’s fee, textbooks, notebooks, uniform, shoes and a bag — now requires between Rs20,000 and Rs30,000.

The report further stated that there is a 40 per cent shortage of new textbooks in the market this year, prompting strong protests from families over the increase in costs.

Parents, including Akhtar Ali and Faizan Shah, said the repeated increase in education expenses appeared deliberate and was making schooling harder to afford, particularly for low-income households. They said this was effectively restricting children from poorer families to basic education. They also argued that education and healthcare are free in many parts of the world and help nurture talent, whereas in Pakistan both sectors have become increasingly out of reach for the poor.

Separately, the Punjab Education Department has made submission of B Forms mandatory for student admissions in the 2026-27 academic session as part of the process for issuing each student a Unique Student Identifier (USI).

The department has directed the chief executive officers of district education authorities across the province to enforce the requirement. Students whose B Forms have not yet been submitted have been told to provide them as soon as possible so their registration can be completed. The requirement also applies to students who are already enrolled.

The Punjab Education Department has also said that the B Form numbers of students studying in all government schools must be entered correctly into the School Information System (SIS).