School claims printing, under the new curriculum, is limited to only a few pages
A Dubai school’s decision to strike out textbooks from their students’ workflow and instead upload worksheets on the school website has irked parents.
The displeasure, however, isn’t over not issuing books but over the school’s decision to burden the parents with the massive printout list.
A few parents highlighted the issue saying its huge waste of money, time and natural resources.
To put the matter in perspective, a parent of two students, claimed that this new practice would effect a printing of 400-450 pages on an average every month for nine academic months.
“That would be about 3,800 pages during the entire year for my children,” he totals.
He has exhausted not only his time but also piles of paper to printout worksheets for his grade 2 and grade 4 children.
The parent does a number crunching theory to accentuate the impact of the problem at hand.
“With 25 children in a class, we are talking about parents taking 50,000 printouts every academic year.
“I understand that there are about seven sections for each grade, so we are talking about a whopping 350,000 printouts per grade. And that’s only the Junior school. I don’t even want to start doing the math for middle-school.”
Another parent stressed how this action is indirectly opposes the KHDA, as their official e-mail carries the no-print disclaimer which states; “10 litres of water are required to produce 1 sheet of A4 paper. Don’t print this unless you have to”.
“On the one side you are stressing on the importance of conservation, and on the other you are ordering us to take loads of printouts,” another parent added.
Apart from the impact on the environment, and the number of hours spent printing it, many even stressed on how the printing cost equaled to the earlier textbook costs.
With no direct communication from the school, and only information relayed through their children, parents are struggling to cope with the new printout list.
“We knew the school was shifting to CBSE-I curriculum and we were prepared for the worksheets. But, we thought it would be provided by the school. It came as a shock when we found out that we had to do it,” added another parent.
She added that the school has not taken any efforts to communicate this to them, and their decision to file a formal complaint has fallen on deaf ears.
“I did write an e-mail to the school principal and the chairman but the e-mails bounced back. I don’t know if they have blocked e-mails. So, I took a printout and couriered it to them. There has been no response until now,” relayed a parent.
In fact, one parent insisted that despite numerous efforts he was unable to secure an appointment with the school principal.
A number of them have even filed a formal complaint with the KHDA.
When Emirates247 contacted the school, the headmaster explained that the issue at hand has emerged due to their shift in curriculum and will be sorted out soon.
“This is only a teething problem. We have shifted completely to the CBSE-I curriculum and this process eliminates textbooks and offers online worksheets instead,” he detailed.
“There is no need to print all the worksheets. Only a few need to be printed per unit,” he clarified.
This, he insisted, was communicated to the parents.
“But, most of the parents insist on taking all the printouts because they are used to the textbook system. And, that’s a huge waste. We are advising parents to restrict their printouts only to the basic requirement.”
The headmaster, however, claimed that the “paradigm shift” was communicated to the parents, and added that he was helping many to settle in.
He, in fact, insisted that his email, and that of the principal, were not blocked, and parents were welcome to write to them.
The headmaster asserted that the communication between the parents and the school is ongoing, and they are working towards streamlining this issue.
