The National Assembly Standing Committee's monitoring delegation on the implementation of the new curriculum and textbooks requested the Government to: "Evaluate the impact and level of influence of the discount rate in textbook publishing costs on current textbook prices. The monitoring delegation believes that the current discount rate for textbooks and reference books is too high."
The National Assembly's monitoring delegation believes that the current discount rate for textbooks and reference books is too high.
The Government's document sent to the monitoring delegation, signed by Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son on August 4, explained: according to the provisions of the 2012 Price Law and Circular No. 56/2014/TT-BTC dated April 28, 2014 guiding the implementation of Decree No. 177/2013/ND-CP guiding the Price Law, the Ministry of Finance (specifically the Price Management Department) is responsible for receiving and reviewing documents declaring textbook prices and reviewing the contents of price declaration documents to serve the work of price stabilization, state management of prices, inspection and examination according to the provisions of law.
Publishers are responsible before the law for the correctness and appropriateness of the textbook price plan declared to the Ministry of Finance.
According to the price declaration document of Vietnam Education Publishing House with the Ministry of Finance, the discount rate for textbooks according to the 2018 general education program declared from 2020 by this publishing house is as follows: 23% for textbooks for grades 1, 2 and 6; 22.5% for textbooks for grades 3, 7 and 10; 21% for textbooks for grades 4, 8 and 11.
"Such discounts have a significant impact on textbook prices," the government report said.
Apply price ceiling, continue to consider options to buy textbooks for students to borrow
Regarding the corrective solution, the document stated: "The Government is directing the Ministry of Education and Training to coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to establish a ceiling price for textbooks according to regulations to strengthen State management of textbook prices. This is a solution to manage textbook prices and reduce textbook distribution discounts."
Regarding the plan to buy textbooks for students to borrow to reduce the burden on people, the Government's document sent to the monitoring delegation said that the Prime Minister had directed the Ministry of Education and Training. coordination with the Ministry of Finance Develop a plan to purchase textbooks for the library for students to borrow and use.
The Ministry of Education and Training has sent official dispatches to localities requesting reports on student data and proposing funding needs for purchasing textbooks for students to borrow and use; the amount of local budget funds to be self-balanced and proposing funding support from the central budget.
Currently, the Government directs the Ministry of Education and Training to synthesize reports from localities, calculate and develop support plans, assess the impact on the state budget and seek opinions from the Ministry of Finance on the ability to balance the state budget, to report to competent authorities for consideration and decision.
As Thanh Nien has reported, the price of textbooks under the 2018 General Education Program since the "change of books" has often been 2-4 times higher than the price of textbooks under the 2006 program.
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