Moroccan parents are trying to shed light on the rising cost of school supplies, amid a general price hike and ongoing inflation in the country.
Last week, the Ministry of Education and textbook publishers announced that manual prices would not increase due to a joint agreement between both parties.
Textbook publishers asked a few months ago to increase their prices due to rising commodity and materials costs.
Instead of increasing their prices, publishers are getting support directly from the government, according to the agreement.
The increase should’ve initially amounted to 25% of textbook prices due to rising printing costs, which reassured the parents.
However, new concerns now revolve around expected price hikes for school supplies, especially notebooks, for which the prices have soared up to 40% in some cases.
The Union of Parents and Guardians of Students has called on public and private institutions to take into account the social situation of families due to high prices, reducing the list of school supplies for the upcoming school season.
“School supplies must meet the objectives established in the teaching methodology, and must also be unified among all schools, public and private,” stressed Mohamed Nahili, president of the Union.
Many of parents expressed their concern about demanding lists of school supplies, which stresses their budgets and burdens students’ parents, especially after the impact of the pandemic and the ongoing inflation affecting most goods and services in the country.
“The increase in prices under the current circumstances imposes the need to reduce the volume of school supplies, given the high cost of textbooks in the first place, which requires taking into consideration the social situation of families,” added Nahili in a statement to Hespress FR.
The President of the Union calls on schools to find a solution to the long lists or find alternative ways such as digital books as is the case for missionary schools.
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