The Ministry of Education and Training and experts also pointed out problems with textbook prices and solutions to overcome this rather painful problem.
THE TEXTBOOKS OF THIS SET ARE TWICE THE PRICE OF OTHER SETS
It is a fact that textbook prices of publishing units have a relatively large difference. In general, textbook prices between units differ by more than 20% (calculated according to cover price), some books even have prices twice as high (English 1, English 2).
The high price of textbooks when implementing the socialization policy is unacceptable to consumers.
PHOTO: DAO NGOC THACH
The Ministry of Education and Training analyzed that before July 1, 2024, textbooks will declare prices according to the 2012 Price Law. Accordingly, the Ministry of Finance is the agency that receives the textbook price declaration plans of publishers. Recently, the Ministry of Education and Training coordinated with the Ministry of Finance to review the textbook price declaration plans of units and sent many documents to textbook publishing units requesting maximum savings, cutting common expenses to reduce textbook prices; synchronously and effectively implementing solutions to support the provision of textbooks for students under social policy; students in remote, isolated, and disadvantaged areas; students from poor and near-poor households so that they have enough textbooks to go to school.
For Vietnam Education Publishing House (GDVN), a unit under the management of the Ministry of Education and Training, in 2024, it declared a reduction in the price of reprinted textbooks compared to previous years (the average reduction is 9.6% and 11.2% depending on the book series).
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MAXIMUM TEXTBOOK PRICE APPRAISAL COUNCIL
According to the 2023 Price Law, which takes effect from July 1, 2024, textbooks are on the list of goods priced by the State and the Ministry of Education and Training sets the maximum price. The Government has issued Decree No. 85/2024 dated July 10, 2024 detailing a number of articles of the Price Law; the Ministry of Finance has signed a circular promulgating a general pricing method for goods and services priced by the State.
Up to now, the Ministry of Education and Training has issued economic and technical norms for compiling, editing, and printing textbooks according to the General Education Program. According to the Ministry of Education and Training, this is the basis for determining the maximum price of textbooks according to the principle of ensuring harmony between the state's price management function and the policy of socializing textbook compilation; ensuring social security and consumer rights.
The Ministry of Education and Training has also established a council to assess the maximum textbook prices. Based on the council's assessment of the textbook price plan, the Minister of Education and Training issued Decision No. 3480 on November 11, regulating the maximum textbook prices.
The Ministry of Education and Training said that the ceiling price set by the Ministry of Education and Training is basically lower than the current selling price of publishing units. After the Ministry of Education and Training issued the maximum price for textbooks, publishing units adjusted the price of textbooks down by 5-20% depending on the book to ensure that the ceiling price is not exceeded.
PUBLISHING HOUSE POINTS OUT PROBLEMS WHEN OPERATING MULTIPLE SETS OF TEXTBOOKS
The representative of the Vietnam Education Publishing House said that the socialization of textbooks creates opportunities for many publishers to participate, the supply will be more diverse and abundant; helping students and teachers have more choices of textbooks suitable for their learning and teaching needs. The competition between publishers forces publishers to invest more in research and development to publish books of high value, helping to promote the improvement of the quality of content and form of textbooks.
However, this publishing house also pointed out many difficulties that textbook publishing units in general are facing. Specifically, the circular guiding the selection of textbooks for use in educational institutions of the Ministry of Education and Training has been adjusted over the years, leading to difficulties in market deployment and planning.
Regarding competition between textbooks, the legal regulations on different types of enterprises in organizing production and business activities, organizing publishing, printing and distributing textbooks create an unequal competitive mechanism. Specifically, private enterprises or joint stock companies have the right to proactively organize production; proactively purchase materials and printing services directly according to actual needs without having to carry out bidding procedures with a lot of time and paperwork like state-owned enterprises, so the time and progress of competition are more competitive.
In addition, the fact that educational institutions choose books according to Circular 27 makes it difficult to supply books to the right needs of each locality in small quantities (because each school chooses subjects from different sets of textbooks), so bookstores need to have a store area that can be 3 times larger than before to display all sets of textbooks. Sales labor costs also increase because there must be workers to select books or guide parents to buy the right books their children need.
The fact that many sets of books compete makes it more difficult to forecast demand for printing and distribution than before. While there are no results of textbook selection by localities and no number of registered books to supply, the Publishing House must calculate and forecast the market to carry out the bidding process for purchasing materials and textbook printing services in accordance with the law to have textbooks in time to serve the new school year. This stage takes a lot of time and if the bid fails, the bidding must be reorganized, the printing time must be extended. This makes the printing of textbooks risky, difficult to ensure full, timely, and synchronous distribution to units serving the annual opening ceremony.
The Vietnam Education Publishing House said: "This is also a huge pressure on the publishing house: pressure from public opinion about the lack of books, "book fever"; illegal printing, fake book distribution, and illegal book distribution are rampant; slow and delayed book import progress leads to incomplete and unsynchronized distribution, causing transportation costs to increase, and the number of textbooks in stock at the end of the year to increase...".
By this school year, the new curriculum and textbooks have been fully deployed to all levels of education.
photo: peach jade
DO NOT SOCIALIZE THE WHOLE THING
So is it possible to reduce the price of textbooks when implementing the socialization of this item? Sharing with Thanh Nien reporter, Associate Professor Ngo Tri Long, former Director of the Institute for Price Market Research (Ministry of Finance), said that the policy of socializing textbooks is correct, but textbooks are special items, so they should only be socialized at each stage, such as the stage of compiling textbooks. The State will subsidize and support certain stages to ensure that textbook prices are suitable for all families, not socializing all stages to produce a textbook like today.
According to Mr. Long, the state should use the budget to attract, pay for, and reward talented and experienced people to participate in compiling textbooks. With the support of the budget, textbook prices will decrease significantly while the quality of content will increase. Thus, we will have the best team of experts to write textbooks, and people will not have to buy textbooks at too high a cost.
At a recent discussion on this issue, Professor Hoang Van Cuong, member of the National Assembly's Finance and Budget Committee, also proposed a solution to reduce the price of socialized textbooks. "The State should spend its budget to buy back the copyright and from now on never calculate the copyright cost in the distribution anymore. The State has paid for the entire copyright, the private sector only prints and distributes, and no longer calculates the royalty cost. Thus, we will create equal competition, all units are the same, all have a starting point," Mr. Cuong analyzed.
First time teachers participated in writing textbooks?
Implementing the policy of socializing textbook compilation, publishing houses and joint stock companies, based on the standards for individuals compiling textbooks as stipulated in Circular 33/2017/TT-BGDDT, have selected and signed contracts with editors, chief editors, and authors participating in compiling textbooks.
Of which, the number of professors accounts for 6.8%, associate professors accounts for 21.2%; PhDs account for 36.2%, masters 33.9%, the number of participating teachers is 343 people, accounting for 1.9%. The number of authors with academic titles and degrees from PhD and above accounts for nearly 3/4 of the total number of authors, especially for the first time, the compilation of textbooks has attracted teachers who are teaching at general schools to participate in the compilation.
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/gia-sgk-xa-hoi-hoa-co-binh-on-duoc-khong-185241219221418407.htm
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