Private schools ‘waste millions of books every year’

ISTANBUL

Private schools prompt their students to use different sources instead of utilizing the textbooks provided for free by the Education Ministry, leading to the wastage of millions of textbooks each year.

As the new academic year approaches, the ministry has started sending textbooks for free to all schools across the country.

However, many private schools compel students to purchase other textbooks, which cost each student up to 20,000 Turkish Liras ($753), claiming that the content of the ministry's books is insufficient and inadequate for preparation for high school or university entrance exams.

Some private schools sell the received textbooks to recycling facilities for a fee even before the start of the academic year, without even using them once. Others store the books in warehouses, planning to wait until the end of the year for sales.

"We distribute the books to students on the first day of school. To be honest, we don't use them at all because we have our own textbooks. If there are leftover books at the end of the year, we send them for recycling. However, some schools immediately sell the books as soon as they receive them, based on the logic that they won't use them anyway. There is no need for these books. They all end up as trash," said the owner of a private school in Istanbul to daily Milliyet. 

From the beginning of the free textbook distribution project in 2003 until 2021, a total of 3.3 billion textbooks were distributed, costing 7.6 billion liras ($287 million). This year, the ministry will distribute more than 137 million textbooks.

Providing information regarding the ministry’s textbook, education expert Naci Atalay stated that the claims of private schools about the poor quality of the textbooks provided by the ministry remained valid until about five years ago, but now the ministry prepares high-quality textbooks.

"The previous textbooks were of very poor quality and were not suitable for the exam system. We used to wish they were never printed, but for the last five years, the books have been of very high quality. Hence, it's not right to sell them without even opening them," Atalay said.