VietnamEducation Publishing House has announced the new textbook prices for grades 4, 8 and 11 in the two sets Connecting Knowledge with Life and Creative Horizons. Vietnam Education Investment and Publishing Joint Stock Company (VEPIC) has also announced the prices for the Canh Dieu set. These are the three sets of books approved by the Ministry of Education and Training after appraisal, serving as a basis for schools to choose and teach from the 2023-2024 school year.
Accordingly, there are 14-15 textbooks for grade 4, including 2 volumes for math, Vietnamese, and English, priced at 250,000-280,000 VND/set. Although the Canh Dieu set does not have English books, the price is already 230,000 VND/set.
The 14-volume 8th grade textbook set of Connecting Knowledge with Life costs 270,000 - 300,000 VND. The remaining sets of books lack English but their prices also range from 250,000 - 270,000 VND. The 11th grade textbook set is sold for around 350,000 - 390,000 VND.
This is the retail price that the publishers declare to the Price Management Department, Ministry of Finance . The price range for each book set is as follows:
Compared to textbooks under the old curriculum, the price of new textbooks for grade 4 is about 3 times higher. Specifically, grade 4 textbooks under the old curriculum are 87,000 VND/set. However, the number of new books is greater due to the addition of textbooks for subjects such as physical education and experiential activities.
Similarly, the new textbooks for grades 8 and 11 are also 2-3 times more expensive than the old set. This amount is calculated based on the individual price of 16 books, including 9 books for compulsory subjects in the new program, 4 books for optional subjects and 3 specialized books. The Canh Dieu set will be more expensive when it has enough English books.
In 2022, the price of new textbooks is an issue that attracts special public attention. Explaining why the price of new textbooks is much higher than the current price, the Vietnam Education Publishing House said that there is a fundamental difference between the cost of compiling current textbooks and the new set of books.
Firstly, in terms of capital, the compilation and publication of new textbooks is funded by enterprises themselves and by bank loans. As for current (old) textbooks, it is funded by the state budget and loans from the World Bank. The Vietnam Education Publishing House only covers the costs of organizing the manuscript for reprinting. The cost of the current book manuscript is only about 1/10 of the new book manuscript.
Second, royalties for new textbooks are higher than for current books and arise from the remuneration regime due to the competitive mechanism to have good authors.
Third, the new textbooks are 19 x 26.5 cm in size, 1.23 times larger than the current textbooks (17 x 24 cm) to meet the requirements of innovative educational methods according to the competency development model, through visualizing content... Therefore, printing costs increase by 23% compared to current textbooks.
In addition, there are also marketing costs, when many publishers participate in publishing textbooks in a competitive environment, leading to costs for market deployment activities (marketing) such as introducing, providing sample books; communication... While the price of current (old) textbooks does not have to allocate these costs.
However, after strong public reaction, the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Finance proposed to put textbooks on the list of state-priced goods, with the Ministry of Education and Training deciding the maximum price, and publishers deciding the specific prices themselves.
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