COVID-19: Booksellers call for review of guidelines for school reopening

Ozolua Uhakheme, Assistant Editor (Arts)

President, Booksellers Association of Nigeria (BAN), Mr. Michael Oluwadare Oluwatuyi has expressed concern over the consequences of schools’ inability to meet the conditions for reopening as spelt out in the Federal Ministry of Education guidelines, saying it will be a severe cost to Nigerian booksellers.

According to a statement, Oluwatuyi called for a review of some of the guidelines with a view to ensuring that many more schools are able to satisfy them, without of course, countenancing any negative health impact on our children, parents and the school community.

Oluwatuyi is also troubled as to why government should saddle schools with the task of directly providing learning and instructional materials to students as suggested in the guidelines, noting that institutions should be more directly concerned with the provision of logistics and infrastructure in their premises, while leaving parents to interface with bookshops for the book and learning materials needs of their children.

“In our view then, schools should not do more than release lists of recommended books and other instructional materials to parents. The Bookshops would then in turn stock books and parents should buy books and learning materials for their wards from these Bookshops. This is more so when encouraging schools to be booksellers and Bookselling agents has untoward consequences on the book chain.

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“Part of the benefit of our proposal is that parents will be able to buy books and learning materials from bookshops at publishers’ retail prices and at their convenience rather than being forced to pay the cost of books along with school fees in one fell swoop,” he added.

He noted that the mere act of visiting the bookshops will afford parents and students the opportunity to see other relevant books that will help their reading and learning experiences. This, he said, will help in improving the national reading culture and expand the thinking faculty of the students.

“Indeed, over the years, the practice of selling books to students by schools has seriously hindered the exposure of parents, pupils and students to the array of relevant and impactful books that are available in the country. Visiting bookshops is another form of education and also serves as guided excursion sessions for pupils and students,” he said.