🎒 School wants books, uniform and now even socks bought only from their counter

Every June the same list comes home from a lot of private schools. Books, notebooks, uniform, belt, shoes, ID card holder, all to be bought from the school counter, and no, you can't get it outside. Prices are nothing like the market. Notebooks cost more, the uniform shirt costs more, and the book set comes as one sealed bundle, so you can't skip the ones the older kid already used. Ask why and it's always "school standard", and they won't take responsibility if the shade of blue doesn't match. Apparently CBSE told its schools years ago not to run shops like this and to let parents buy outside. Haven't seen many schools here act like that circular exists. When rent and fees already take most of the salary, a few thousand extra every June isn't small. Some have started selling shoes and socks too now. And if you go to the management about it, there's always that worry in the back of your head that your kid gets treated a little differently after. I read the Hyderabad education officials also put out an order a couple of years back, saying schools can't sell books and uniforms on campus like a shop. Same story as the CBSE one. The counter still opens every June, with a queue right down the corridor. Is any school here different? Or does every parent just pay and say nothing?

Ask for the book list with the publisher names. Most of those books are sitting in the Koti and Abids shops for less, and the notebooks are just notebooks, nobody can tell where you bought them.

That worry about the kid being treated differently is the whole reason nobody complains, and the schools know it. It's easier as a group. If twenty parents from one class sign the same letter, there's no one person to single out. Even a polite letter asking for the book list so parents can buy outside would be a start.