Used and Free Textbooks for students in School and Colleges
Lasting solutions to many social problems will be found only as we each learn to say, ‘I am society’.
As we all have been suffered from the after-effects of this pandemic and almost ended up with our savings and hardly living on our earnings it became very difficult for most of us to meet the basic needs of our lives. In this situation, the School Organization did not give relief to the parents and asked them to pay the fees of their child as well and with the start of the new session, they had to afford the cost for expensive textbooks as well. These expensive textbooks are always a sort of a burden to pay for the parents in addition to the bulk amount of tuition fees as well.
In regard to this social problem which most of the middle-class parents have to face I came up with an idea of normalizing used textbooks in our society so that those people who cannot afford to buy such expensive textbooks for their children can have a relief from it. Thus to get an insight from the parents about this plan I conducted a survey through Google Form from the parents.
The majority of the parents praised the idea of buying the used textbooks for their children while very few of them were not sure about this idea. One of the parents said that “I think this is the best idea to get the opinion of parents of what they think because in this pandemic it’s really hard for some people to run their homes so how could they buy new books.”
When it was asked from the parents that at what cost they would like to sell the used textbooks of their children so they showed up like 50% of the original price and some were willing to give the textbooks free of cost as well.
The parents praised the concept of used textbooks by saying “Using old books should be normalized and we should support each other as a community instead of selling these books.”
In light of this response, I planned to have a partnership with student groups/clubs to collect used textbooks at the end of each year in which students will donate their used textbooks either free of cost or by getting or at a rate of 50% from the original price. Some of the textbooks will be resold to the students at school, colleges, and Universities while some of the textbooks will be donated to the needy and deserving students while the profit would be used for social programs in developing areas.
Every invention creates new needs, but the biggest needs are not for new and more advanced versions of the last invention but for solutions to the social problems the last invention created.
I would be implementing this idea as soon as the schools are opened and we get a chance to interact with the students and in the meanwhile, I would be doing this practice and collecting these used textbooks first from my family, relatives, and friends as it is well said that Charity begins at home. I would be starting this campaign first in schools and then further expand it in Colleges and Universities as well by collecting different academic materials like Notes, Practical Books and other E-Material as well
Thus this concept of problem-solving through design thinking helped me to think about the problems that a common man faces in his everyday life and the issues that must be addressed and normalized in our society so that each and every citizen of this society get the maximum benefit and relief from the burdens which the people have created myths by themselves.
