This admission season,schools promote donation of old books

KVM principal Navita Puri told Ludhiana Newsline,“The idea was to encourage students to donate books and also save paper. It was the brainchild of our school manager Ashwani Kumar,who recently went to Canada and observed that even the students belonging to well-to-do families were using second-hand books there. He gave us the idea and we thought if Canada can implement the model then why not we in India. Then we decided to play the role of a mediator between the students who can donate and the ones who want old books.”

The idea has received an overwhelming response. “We have got a minimum of six donators and six receivers from every class,and with seven sections,the total comes to 42 from every standard,” said Puri.

KVM which has implemented this idea from classes I to IX will see more than 370 students receiving and donating old books this admission season.

Coming up with another innovative idea,BCM Arya Model Senior Secondary School,Shastri Nagar,has put up a books donation box on the school premises. The box gets filled with old books during the admission season. The librarian empties the box after a month and distributes books to students as per need.

Paramjeet Kaur,principal of the school,said,“Every year new books are bought and it becomes a problem for parents where to keep old books. We thought of putting the box so that books can be donated to the needy rather than giving them away in scrap.”

“We not only distribute books received in the box to our students but also to NGOs and special schools,if our school lacks demand for old books. Books received are also kept on display in library and interested students can take them if they like. Financially weaker students are identified by teachers and old sets of books are arranged for them. The school has also placed a request register in library where students can write the titles they want and school arranges the same for them,” she added.

“Schools have taken a noble step by acting as a mediator as families who wanted to donate books were not always aware of the students who need them,” said Shreya Kansal,a mother of two kids studying at KVM.