The extent of price increase in school textbooks for this year has widened considerably, rising to 3.0% and 3.7% on average for the primary and secondary sectors respectively.
This became clear as the Consumer Council unveiled the results of its annual textbook price survey covering a total of 36 publishers and 631 textbooks (267 primary and 364 secondary).
The survey showed a widening in the rate of price rise compared with average increases of 1.8% (primary) and 1.5% (secondary) last year.
The increase was set against rising price movements as the economy rebounds, though the Composite Consumer Price Index in the preceding 12-month period was up only 0.4%.
The year's biggest average price increases were recorded in the subjects, in the primary sector, of English (4.0%), Maths (3.6%), and General Studies (3.5%). In the secondary sector, they were: Commerce/Accounting (5.0%), Computing and IT (4.5%), and History (4.3%).
Textbooks at the top 10 percent of the highest price increases were named, for the information of consumers, in the July issue of CHOICE. They ranged from 4.7% to 5.0% for primary textbooks, and 5.1% to 11.8% for secondary textbooks.
Publishers have blamed the price increase on rising paper costs (+6% to 13%), and other costs of staff, rent, transportation and the production of IT teaching aids. Printing costs, however, remained largely unchanged with some actually falling slightly.
Other factors included: increase in research costs as frequent curriculum reform shortens the life cycle of textbooks; the trend of using online and multimedia teaching aids requiring more investment; a shrinking market due to a low birth rate.
The growing use of second-hand or photocopy textbooks over new ones adversely affecting textbook sales, was also cited as a factor for the need to raise prices significantly.
The Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) has long maintained that publishers should take into consideration the current economic situation and control their production costs with the objective that textbook prices can be lowered and the burdens on parents lessened.
In the Guidelines for Printing Textbooks, issued by the EMB to publishers, it is stated that textbooks should be practical and without frills - for example, by using inexpensive paper, and avoiding investing high costs on the packaging and printing of textbooks.
On selection of textbooks, the EMB has reiterated that while looking for quality of content, low price should also be a determining factor. Schools are encouraged to exercise their bargaining power in the interest of students.
In a recent Consumer Council survey on the schools in relation to their choice of textbooks, 72 primary schools and 51 secondary schools professed that the most single influential factor for the decision was the quality of the textbook, not its price.
Nonetheless, compared with a similar survey in 1998, the latest survey did show that the importance of price consideration has moved up from 1.2 points to 1.8 points this year (on a 4-point scale with 0 as "not important" and 3 as "very important").
In the survey, some secondary schools also shared the view that the textbooks were a bit too expensive.
The Consumer Council reserves all its right (including copyright) in respect of CHOICE Magazine and Online CHOICE ( https://echoice.consumer.org.hk/ ).