New publishers for Education needed

[East_coast]

The current system of only having a few school text book publishers and tinkering with the policy of will they / wont they bundle teachers material has not and will not result in cheaper books.

Average expenditure 2008 2009 2010
on textbooks
Primary School $2,153 $2,032 $2,091
Secondary School $1,947 $1,796 $2,016

The only way to get cheaper books is to introduce competition and allow different approaches. Education publishers obviously look to increase the perceived value of books to improve margins. This results in the use of high quality paper, lots of colour photos, pretty colour charts and funcky layouts but with minimal web based supplementary content for teachers/schools to use such as tests, quizzes, discussion forums etc.

The Government is planing some sort of 'pro-active' scheme that will allow more 'control' of book publishing.

This looks like a way of bring school book publishing back under the control of the Education (and Ministry of Culture and Information) Department.

news.gov.hk - Categories - At School, At Work - E-textbook subsidy mooted



Do you trust the Government to do the right thing and open up the industry to new politically neutral entrants?
Are school textbooks too 'fancy'?
Will e-books work for schools?

[Mat]

I always trust the government.


Next question East Cost?

[East_coast]

are school text books too fancy?

[JAherbert]

They should abandon the current system, the school text "books" are really little shonky booklets with some text and blank spaces on every page for students to fill in a sum, a drawing, or an answer.

So those "books" are not reusable, there are only good for one year, requiring new booklets (with blank spaces) for next year! The waste of paper is enormous, at the end of the year piles of these used books appear in the paper recycling shop nr. my office.

Perhaps its cheaper to make these booklets rather than buy the rights to a reusable textbook?

[Boris]

HKG develops its own system of education for its small ( k12 = 800k ) and does not adhere to a larger international standard or even the motherlands adopted system where text books already exist in large numbers (10's of millions+ ) with a low selling cost. It designs it in such a way that all previous books and lesson plans are defunct thereby requiring a lot of time and effort to design and implement.

It then complains about prices and lack of freebies.

Politicians and their ego games are the sport of choice here.

[Proplus]

Good to see some things haven't changed in the 30 years since I was primary school in HK!!!!

[Creative83]

I could easily use $7hkd to duplicate those thin elementary books here at home with my printer and the book publisher's argument was the cost in overhead, forcing publishers into a corner.

If the government gave me the entire market, I will want to be in that corner.

[Boris]

I could easily use $7hkd to duplicate those thin elementary books here at home with my printer and the book publisher's argument was the cost in overhead, forcing publishers into a corner.

If the government gave me the entire market, I will want to be in that corner.

That is much too simplistic.
HKG forced the publishers into a round of design, review, amend, review, approve that made them have to form whole departments just to go through their bureaucratic process. It was never a case of just throw a few things into a pamphlet and put it on a shelf. The costs where not small.

I doubt you have ever had any experience of any national governments procurement procedures and HKG was schooled by the Brits with a Masters from the World Champions China.

[Boris]

They should abandon the current system, the school text "books" are really little shonky booklets with some text and blank spaces on every page for students to fill in a sum, a drawing, or an answer.

So those "books" are not reusable, there are only good for one year, requiring new booklets (with blank spaces) for next year! The waste of paper is enormous, at the end of the year piles of these used books appear in the paper recycling shop nr. my office.

Perhaps its cheaper to make these booklets rather than buy the rights to a reusable textbook?

You may be too young to remember the early 80's and all the talk of computers and the paperless office ................ We where so young and would believe anything!

On the point of schools making the booklets, it is probably more expensive in time and resources for the school. Much easier to just fill in a form and let someone else do all the work. In a school of 2,000 how many booklets would you think might be required?

10,000 just for the core curriculum, 50 pages per booklet min? That's A LOT OF PRINTING !!! Too much for a photocopier at cost per page (duplex) against a printing machine.
Also HK printing is much more expensive than over the border where the pros get it done.

As I said - much easier just to fill in a form.

[Creative83]

That is much too simplistic.
HKG forced the publishers into a round of design, review, amend, review, approve that made them have to form whole departments just to go through their bureaucratic process. It was never a case of just throw a few things into a pamphlet and put it on a shelf. The costs where not small.

I doubt you have ever had any experience of any national governments procurement procedures and HKG was schooled by the Brits with a Masters from the World Champions China.

Funny, they're books. Not something you put into your mouth. You invest heavily the 1st year, 2nd year the cost is nil.