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The Education Bureau (EDB) announced today (May 10) the prices of textbooks on the Recommended Textbook List for the 2010/11 school year.
An EDB spokesman said, "We welcome the exercise of restraint by all member publishers of the two textbook publishers associations when setting textbook prices for the new school year in freezing the prices of recommended textbooks published by them to alleviate parents' financial burden.
"We also welcome the support of the two textbook publishers associations in recognising the principle of the EDB's policy of 'debundling textbooks and learning/teaching resources for pricing'. Their active collaboration with the Bureau in addressing parents' concern over textbook prices is appreciated," the spokesman said.
The spokesman said that the EDB had been paying close attention to issues related to the rising prices of textbooks and was keen to explore ways to address the price setting issue. The Working Group on Textbooks and e-Learning Resources Development submitted a report in October last year recommending the debundling of textbooks and learning/teaching resources for pricing from the 2010/11 school year to enforce the "user-pays" principle.
"The EDB understands that textbook publishers may need time to resolve problems encountered in the implementation of debundling textbooks and learning/teaching resources for pricing. The EDB, after thorough consideration, has decided to postpone the implementation of the debundling policy for a year," the spokesman said.
The EDB today issued a circular memorandum on "Notes on Selection of Textbooks and Learning Materials for Use in Schools" advising schools not to solicit free teaching materials and floral baskets from textbook publishers nor to ask them to donate equipment or place advertisements in school publications, so as to help textbook publishers to avoid waste and reduce costs, thereby lowering textbook prices.
"The EDB, through the Textbooks Committee, will continue to discuss with textbook publishers the implementation of the debundling policy. We will also discuss with textbook publishers issues relating to the provision of quality teaching materials (including e-learning materials) through related working groups," the spokesman added.
As in previous years, the EDB has collected prices of textbooks on the Recommended Textbook List from textbook publishers through established working procedures and uploaded the price information onto the EDB's website for schools' reference in textbook selection for the new school year. The prices of recommended textbooks in the coming school year (2010/2011) were uploaded onto the EDB's website (www.edb.gov.hk) today.
Ends/Monday, May 10, 2010
Issued at HKT 15:50
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