Textbook shortage, price hike strain parents

With the commencement of the new academic year, Urdu Bazaar and textbook shops are witnessing an overwhelming rush, along with outlets offering book-covering services. Prices for protective covers have also increased this year. In residential neighbourhoods, educated female students, homemakers and working women have begun covering books at home on a part-time basis to supplement household kitchen expenses. Many homes now display signs offering book-covering services, while women are also undertaking paid work sourced from commercial cover shops. The fee for applying an X-ray plastic cover to a single book ranges from Rs75 to Rs100, while larger notebooks and registers cost between Rs120 and Rs130. A full set of a student's books can typically be covered within three to four hours. Meanwhile, rising paper costs have driven up the prices of all types of notebooks, registers, textbooks, drawing books, practical copies and other stationery items. A basic small notebook now costs Rs150, a medium one Rs250, and a higher-quality version Rs400. Good-quality registers are priced at Rs450, drawing books at Rs1,000, and practical copies between Rs2,700 and Rs3,000. School-related expenses have also surged: uniforms cost around Rs3,000, school shoes range from Rs2,500 to Rs5,000, and school bags start at Rs1,500 for very basic quality, rising to Rs3,000–Rs5,000 for better options. Admission fees vary by school and class, but families report that enrolling a single child—factoring in first-month fees, textbooks, notebooks, uniform, shoes and a bag—now costs between Rs20,000 and Rs30,000. Additionally, there is a reported 40 per cent shortage of new textbooks in the market this year. Families have strongly protested against the rising costs. Parents, including Akhtar Ali and Faizan Shah, alleged that such increases are deliberate, making schooling increasingly expensive so that children from low-income families are effectively limited to basic education. They argued that education and healthcare are free in many parts of the world, fostering talent, whereas in Pakistan both have been made progressively inaccessible for the poor. Admissions mandate B Forms On the other hand, the Education Department has made it mandatory for students to submit their B Forms while registering for admissions in the 2026-27 academic session as part of its move to issue each student a Unique Student Identifier (USI). The Chief Executive Officers of the District Education Authorities of all districts across the province have been directed to implement this requirement and the students whose B Forms have not been received yet have been instructed to submit them as soon as possible so that their registrations are completed. The requirement also applies to currently enrolled students. The Punjab Education Department has said that the B Form numbers of students studying in all government schools should be correctly input in the School Information System (SIS).