About Those Textbooks

REPORTS this week that one of two young men was caught while allegedly breaking into a Castries-based secondary school serves to remind us how ingenious thieves are these days.

According to the reports, the two youngsters were intent on carting away a number of textbooks that they planned on selling to unsuspecting students now preparing for the new school year.

Over the years, it has become the norm seeing scores of people in the city selling piles of used and new textbooks at reduced prices. In many instances, the prices seem more attractive than those charged by bookstores. However, it turns out that in some cases, these books were stolen and some people do end up paying a heavy price.

Some years ago, the owner of a local bookstore took her concerns to the media, lamenting that a young man she had employed during the summer vacation was actually sneaking new textbooks out of the store in his underpants and passing them on to his friends who sold them on the sidewalk a stone’s throw from the store.

It is probably difficult for anyone to decipher whether the books they are buying from these sidewalk book vendors were stolen or not. However, stolen books are undoubtedly finding their way into new owners’ hands via thieves.

The obvious question about safety at schools needs to be revisited. Many teachers insist that students leave some of their textbooks at school. Quite often, it seems less of a burden to do just that instead of having students suffer from back pains from carrying huge backpacks of heavy books to and from school.

But the ostensibly growing trend of thieves breaking into schools – where security guards are supposed to be on duty, by the way – might make parents second-guess that idea altogether. As tough as things are these days, many parents are literally forced to fork over huge sums of money to ensure their children have the required textbooks, only to have their hard-earned money becomes the spoils of thieves.

In some instances, students are even stealing high-value textbooks from their peers at schools and passing them on to their “retailers” for a fee.

The security at schools certainly needs to be beefed up because if thieves can break into schools to steal property, then it is left to the imagination just what other devious acts they can commit while there.