A new start to the school academic year, but parents to foot the bill

Around 4.2 million children start their school year today, amidst the bad news that parents have to face is overpriced school books suffering from excessively high profit margins. "I found cases where margins were 40% to 45% of the book price," said Trade Inspector Bohdan Szemota. New obligatory graduation exams are to be introduced for secondary school leavers, while teachers are reported to have little knowledge about the exam itself. Inspectors found that many school dining rooms were unhygienic and that about a quarter of furniture purchased by schools did not have the app ropriate safety standard certificates. (Zycie, p. 5) P.W.