Obec shelves recycled books plan

Students will continue to receive free new textbooks for at least the next two years after authorities decided to delay the Education Ministry’s plan to switch over to a system where study books would be lent to students and re-used time and again.

The Office of Basic Education Commission (Obec) said the plan will be deferred until at least 2019 after the National AntiCorruption Network (NACN) demanded it be recalled.

The ministry’s budget-saving proposal for children at primary and secondary school level was slammed by critics as a tool to extend the gap between those from rich and poor families.

They said the latter would have to contend with scribbled notes, dog-eared textbooks and possibly out-of-date materials while wealthier families would have the means to buy their own study materials.

NACN secretary-general Mongkolkit Suksintharanon recently submitted a petition requesting Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha order Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin to recall the plan.

He said it could widen inequality, feed graft, create an added financial burden for parents, and run contrary to students’ constitutional right to free basic education.

When quizzed on how it could bring about corruption, he said schools could easily restore old textbooks and then collude with bookstore owners to falsify sales of new books to siphon the money into their own pockets.

But Obec has said the plan will be shelved pending more research. It said it wants to collect information on how students in different grades take care of their textbooks, how many books are damaged or marked by each age group, and the impact on parents’ income.

“We haven’t really collected this kind of information before,” said Obec secretarygeneral Karoon Sakulpradit.

“We calculate from the current budget that about 30% of student textbooks are damaged each year. But gathering more precise data would help us weigh the pros and cons of this policy more accurately.”

Mr Karoon said he expects this will take one academic year.

But the plan will be put on ice for another year after that as Obec intends to update textbooks for many subjects in 2018 in line with its new curriculum.

“So the proposed system won’t happen till 2019 and even then it is not guaranteed as it will depend on the new government or new education minister,” he said.

Obec spends 5 billion baht a year on buying textbooks for 8 million students at primary and secondary levels nationwide, according to figures supplied by the body.

This breaks down to 200 baht per student at kindergarten level and up to 1,300 baht at the secondary level.