The scholastic year has started – or is about to start – and the promised results of an inquiry into possible abuse and overpricing of school products and services have still not been published.

With much fanfare, the government had announced the inquiry last May, soon after the election, saying that it intended to look into the situation to determine whether school items such as uniforms, books and stationery are being sold at a fair price and whether they are of good quality.

This investigation was welcomed by many parents who feel that they are spending too much on school items and sometimes were being constrained to buy what they needed from particular shops only.

Parents were asked to help by sharing their views and suggestions via a questionnaire that was distributed in schools, although not all parents received it. The questionnaire could have been misplaced by the students or got lost in the post, but it does not seem that schools did a lot to encourage parents to participate.

What most parents hoped for was that the investigation would have been completed before the start of the current scholastic year, in time for any regulations that are deemed necessary to be introduced so as to cut down on any possible abuse.

Well, the scholastic year has started, the investigation has not been concluded, no new regulations have been put into force and things are the same as they were a year ago.

For the past weeks, most parents have been running around different shops to buy uniforms, books and other items that schools have asked them to purchase for their sons and daughters. Any parent of children attending private and Church schools can vouch that hundreds of euros have been spent; those whose children attend government schools have had to spend much less because the government provides for students attending state schools.

Now that the schools have opened, the students are returning home every day with a list of other items that each individual teacher has asked them to buy – again, more expenses, particularly for students in secondary schools, where students have a different teacher for every subject.

And, while schools rarely, if ever, change their uniforms – although children grow quickly and a blazer bought for this year might not fit next year – they have the habit of changing books from one scholastic year to another, meaning that books cannot be inherited by younger brothers and sisters. Sometimes, new editions are published with a few minor changes, with schools insisting that only the new editions can be used

These are among the few problems that must have been mentioned by those parents who replied to the questionnaire.

The Office of Fair Competition, which falls under the responsibility of the Finance Ministry, should explain why it was not in a position to finalise its analysis on the subject in hand before the start of the scholastic year – and possibly make recommendations. It would have been of substantial benefit for parents to know where they stand.

When The Malta Independent followed up the story a few weeks ago it was told that the results would have been published “over the next few days”; this week, The Malta Independent again asked for the results and got a different answer – that no comments were available at this stage.

This delay could be a result of the bureaucratic hurdles that anything done in the public service comes up against, but it could also be a result of other things. What is sure is that many parents are disappointed that something that was intended to tackle abuse was not completed in time.

It is hoped that it will be... when the 2009-2010 scholastic year starts.