A new school year has begun, bringing to a halt the annual frantic buying of school textbooks.
This year, parents with children in primary schools had to bear, on average, a 5.2% increase, or $1,894 in textbook expenditures.
Parents of secondary school students fared slightly better - on average, only 3.7% more or $1,756 in textbook spending.
These figures were borne out in the annual textbook expenditure survey of the Consumer Council, on the basis of 54 primary and 38 secondary schools. Other highlights in the survey include:
- In the secondary sector, higher increase was found in Secondary 4 commercial classes (11.5%), due to the increase in prices of textbooks for the two subjects Accounting and Commerce.
- Despite rising prices, the expenditures on Secondary 1 and 2 textbooks were almost the same as last year. But it was observed that some schools have replaced several subjects such as Geography, Chinese History, History, Economic and Public Affairs (EPA) etc. with the subject Liberal Studies, as this year's Secondary 1 students will be the first batch students of the New Senior Secondary.
- It was also observed that more learning materials, supplementary exercises and mock papers for the Territory-wide System Assessment, and other exercises/books for Pre-Secondary One Hong Kong Attainment Test were included in the booklists for upper classes of some primary schools, inflating the expenditure on textbooks for these classes.
- The Education and Manpower Bureau has regarded such mechanical drills for tests inappropriate, adding unnecessarily to the financial burden of the parents.
- This year, for the first time, the Council has included in the survey the textbook expenditure for matriculation classes. Considerable variance among schools was found as some schools teach mainly with notes and most of the textbooks on the booklist were for reference only while others required students to purchase all the textbooks on their booklists.
In the primary sector, the highest increase was found in Primary 1 (6.3%).
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