No Respite to Parents Despite Slowdown in Textbook Price Rise -CHOICE # 441

Hard-pressed parents can expect no respite in the rising costs of school textbooks this year.

As indicated in the latest annual Consumer Council price survey on primary and secondary school textbooks: prices have continued their upward spiral with an aggregate average increase of 3.6%.

The average increase coincided exactly with the rate of increase of 3.6% in the Composite CPI for the 12 months ended May 2013 as compared with the corresponding preceding period.

A breakdown of the aggregate increase showed average increases of 3.2% and 3.8% respectively for primary and secondary school textbooks.

The survey was based on 874 commonly used textbooks in total - 321 primary and 553 secondary - by 31 publishers.

Textbook prices covered in the Council's annual survey have been on the rise consecutively for the past 10 years between 2004 and 2013.

An examination of the rising price trend, however, showed that the extent of overall increase over the past 5 years since 2009 has adhered closely to or been lower than the composite CPI.

This is in stark contrast to the trend in the previous 5-year period between 2004 and 2008, when the yearly overall increase was consistently far above the CPI - for instance, the highest was recorded in 2007 at 6.8% and 5.0% respectively for primary and secondary textbook increases compared with 1.9% increase in CPI in that year.

The changing price tactic is apparently an attempt on the part of textbook publishers in the face of mounting public discontent. It is hoped that textbook publishers will continue to make efforts in pricing to minimize the increase.

The survey showed that with the exception of 60 textbooks which remained unchanged in price, the increases for all other textbooks ranged from 1.0% to 10.8%. The biggest average increase, by subject, was Mathematics in the primary sector (4.1%), and Visual Arts in the secondary sector (6.4%).

As in the previous years, textbook publishers have attributed the price increase to rising costs in rental, staff and printing as well as the continuous decline in the student population and in students taking certain elective subjects.

But not all costs were up, the paper price was down, on average, by 1.3% and 3.0% for woodfree paper and art paper respectively.

In the survey last year, the Consumer Council expressed disappointment at the rising average price of debundled textbooks (with the accompanying teaching materials separately priced from the textbooks).

This year, debundled textbooks (474 or 54.2% of all surveyed textbooks) continued their price increases to the extent of an average of 3.5% - slightly lower than the average increase of yet-to-be debundled books of 3.8%.

In the secondary sector, 189 or 34.2% of debundled textbooks surveyed recorded an average price increase of 3.4% compared with an average 4.1% increase for the 364 or 65.8% of the yet-to-be debundled books.

But the trend was reversed in the case of the primary sector. 285 or 88.8% of debundled textbooks were increased on average by 3.5% while 36 or 11.2% of the yet-to-be debundled books rose by an average of only 1.1% (the lower rate was attributed to the subjects, namely, religious education, life education, and music, which are generally of lower price increase).