Textbooks from grades 1 to 12 will be discounted by about 10-24% in the next school year, according to Mr. Pham Vinh Thai, Editor-in-Chief of Vietnam Education Publishing House.
The information was shared by Mr. Thai at the introduction of textbooks for grades 9 and 12 in Ho Chi Minh City on March 5.
"In order to share the difficulties with parents, in the 2024-2025 school year, Vietnam Education Publishing House will reduce the price of textbooks for grades 1 to 12 by 10-24% compared to the cover price," said Mr. Thai.
The publisher has not yet announced the price of textbooks this year. The new curriculum books currently cost around VND230,000-390,000, usually without English books.
The author introduces the Fine Arts textbook for grade 5 in the Creative Horizons series. Photo: Vietnam Education Publishing House
Vietnam will implement the new general education program (2018 program) from the 2020-2021 school year. The textbook replacement will take place from 2020 and end in 2025. With the policy of "one program, many textbooks", eliminating the publishing monopoly, many units will participate in compiling and publishing books.
Vietnam Education Publishing House alone has 4 sets (Connecting knowledge with life, Creative horizons, Learning together to develop capacity, For equality and democracy in education) for grade 1. From grade 2 to grade 12, this publishing house has two sets (Creative horizons and Connecting knowledge with life), with full subjects.
This is the largest publishing house in the country, under the Ministry of Education and Training. In 2021, the Education Publishing House printed more than 164 million textbooks, with total revenue reaching nearly 1,830 billion VND, over 97% coming from book publishing activities. Profit after tax was 287 billion VND, the highest in its history of operation.
Since releasing new books, the Education Publishing House has been criticized for the price of books being 2-3 times higher than the old books. For example, a set of 14-15 textbooks for grade 4 costs between 250,000 and 280,000 VND, while the price of textbooks for grade 4 according to the old curriculum is 87,000 VND. The same is true for other sets of books.
This publisher partly explains that the number of books in each set is greater. With new books, the compilation and publication are done with the company's own capital, while with old books, the entire cost of the manuscript is taken from the state budget and loans from the World Bank. In addition, the new books are 1.2 times larger than the old books, with increased images and colors...
Previously, the Law on Prices stipulated that textbook prices were set by enterprises (publishers) themselves and they were responsible for their correctness and appropriateness. The Ministry of Finance said that in 2022 and 2023, the discount rate of the two major publishers would be 21 to 22.5% of the cost.
According to the Law on Prices (amended), from July 1 this year, textbooks will be priced by the state. At the thematic supervision session of the National Assembly Standing Committee on innovation of general education programs and textbooks in August 2023, National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue requested relevant agencies to issue methods for pricing textbooks, ensuring strict control of production costs, reducing intermediate costs; and studying to reduce the discount rate to a reasonable level to reduce textbook prices.
Le Nguyen
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