Vietnam Education Publishing House denied raising the price of books and pointed out many reasons why the price of new textbooks is higher than that of old books.
At the end of April, Vietnam Education Publishing House announced new textbooks for grades 3, 7 and 10 in two sets of “Connecting knowledge to life” and “Creative horizon”, applied from the school year 2022. -2023.
Accordingly, a set of 3rd grade books costs VND 177,000 to VND 183,000 while the current set costs VND 58,000. Similarly, 7th grade books cost nearly 210,000 VND, higher than 80,000 VND. Grade 10 books cost 246,000-301,000 VND per set depending on the combination of subjects, 80,000 to 140,000 VND higher than the old set. These levels do not include English books.
The remaining set of books that have been approved, entitled “Kite”, published by a number of publishers with the joint-stock investment and publishing company – Vietnamese educational equipment, are similarly priced. slightly higher than the above two sets.
Cover price of each book in the 3rd grade book series “Connecting knowledge to life”. Image: Publishing House
The price of new textbooks is many times higher than that of old books, which is a problem that has caused debate in the past three years, when starting the implementation of the new general education program with grade 1, the school year 2020-2021. At the beginning of 2020, the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Finance have suggested that the units involved in the compilation, printing and distribution must strictly control costs, determine the price of textbooks to ensure the principle of balance. between business economic benefits and social service purposes. At that time, the Ministry of Education and Training also suggested that the price of new books should not exceed the level of used books sold in the market in the 2019-2020 school year.
However, representatives of publishers at that time affirmed that the price of books could not be equal to or lower than that of old books for many reasons, the most obvious being that the form, size, and number of pages had changed under the new program. In addition, books are made according to the method of socialization, not partially subsidized like second-hand books, so the cost is added to the price.
This year, the controversy re-emerged when the three new books also cost many times more than the old books. Many parents think that the price of books increases to “dizzyHowever, the publisher affirmed that “the bookshelf is declared new, not increased” and “has minimized input costs to have a selling price suitable for the majority of families with children. attend”.
As the publisher of both the current book series and two of the three textbooks under the new program, Vietnam Education Publishing House points out some basic differences between the cost of organizing the compilation of new and old books.
The first is about capital. The organization of compiling and publishing textbooks is currently done with capital sources invested, arranged by enterprises and borrowed from banks. As for old textbooks, the entire cost of organizing the manuscript is covered by the state budget and World Bank loans; Vietnam Education Publishing House only undertakes the cost of organizing the reprint.
To meet the requirements of the new program, according to the publisher, textbooks have been carefully invested in manuscripts, especially in compilation, editing, prepress design and experimentation. Because there are many book series published together, the number of circulation with each book is reduced compared to when there is only one series. The cost of organizing manuscripts allocated to each copy of the book will be higher than before.
“The cost of organizing a draft of an existing textbook is only about one-tenth of the cost of organizing a draft of a new textbook,” this unit confirmed.
Second, according to the publisher, royalties cost with new textbooks is higher than that of old books due to the competitive mechanism to find and retain good authors.
Tuesday, about book quality specification, the new textbook is 19×26.5 cm, 1.23 times larger than the old one (17×24 cm). In order to meet the requirements of reforming educational methods according to the capacity development model, books need to change in the direction of visualizing the content, so it should be printed with more colors. Therefore, the unit cost of printing has increased by 23% compared to the current book.
Finally, Vietnam Education Publishing House mentioned Marketing expense. When there are many publishers participating in the textbook market, costs for market deployment activities (marketing) such as introduction, supply of sample books, communication… are also included in the price. Used book prices are not allocated for this item.
Assoc. Prof. Tran Xuan Nhi, former Deputy Minister of Education and Training, said that the price of textbooks depends on the quality of the book, both in terms of content and form. For the quality of the book’s content, publishers must spend money to invite experienced book writers. In terms of form, books printed on thick, good paper, printed in many colors, with beautiful images, and in a wide format that are easy to see will have a higher cost than books printed on bad paper, with few images and colors. From there, publishers will set prices, and experts from the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Finance will review them to see if that price is appropriate.
“With the textbooks and books under the new program, the price ranges from about 170,000 to 250,000 VND, which is equal to 5 bowls of regular pho. Looking at the quality of the new textbooks and compared to the current market price, I find the price to be expensive. The publishers’ offer is just right,” Mr. Nhi said.
This expert shares more of course There are still people in difficult circumstances, for them 200,000 VND is not a small amount. The State and units must support this group in many ways, including building shared libraries at schools so that students who cannot afford to buy books can borrow to study. The State supports part of the funding, and at the same time socializes and propagates with parents about the support of good books for this library.
New grade 3 textbook published by Vietnam Education Publishing House. Image: Publishing House
In addition to issues directly related to publishing activities, The difference in the number of titles between the old and new series is also the cause of the price difference. For grade 3, the number of books in the old series is 6, including Vietnamese (volumes 1 and 2), Math, Nature, Society, and Writing (volumes 1 and 2). Meanwhile, the new set of books has 12 books including Vietnamese (volumes 1 and 2), Mathematics (volumes 1 and 2), Nature and Society, Ethics, Informatics, Technology, Fine Arts, Music, Activities. Experience, Physical Education. This is also the book with the biggest difference in price.
The price of new textbooks is higher than that of old books, leading to a higher price of reference and supplementary books. Meanwhile, the list of books to buy given by schools often includes supplementary books, making the total amount of money parents have to spend much more than the 177,000-300,000 VND published by the publisher for textbooks alone.
According to the Charter of Primary, Secondary and High School, reference and supplementary books are not on the list of compulsory purchases. Schools are also not allowed to force parents and students to buy these books. The Ministry has issued many guidelines that require schools not to force students to buy reference and supplementary books.
at Blogtuan.info – Source: vnexpress.net – Read the original article here
