HA NOI – The price of textbooks for the next academic year will increase by 16.9 per cent because of the price rise of production materials, according to deputy director of Education Publishing House Nguyen Minh Khang.
The new price list had been approved by the Ministry of Finance, he said, attributing it to the rise in the costs of paper, printing, packaging, anti-fake stamps and loan interests.
Khang said since the beginning of this year, the price of paper had gone up by 30 per cent and the cost of shipping had doubled. He said other factors that contribute to the pricing of paper had remained stable, which was why the price had only increased by 16.9 per cent.
To support disadvantaged students, the publishing house plans to continue the programme that gives free textbooks to children whose parents were invalids or martyrs.
Khang said the publishing house required schools to maintain libraries for shared textbooks and persuaded students to donate used textbooks to these libraries.
Each textbook generally costs less than VND15,000 (US$0.75). The price of a set of 12 textbooks ranges from VND45,000 ($2.10) to VND143,000 ($7). The Education Publishing House is the sole textbook provider in Viet Nam. —VNS
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