Reduced Price Discounts Impacts on Textbook Expenditure - CHOICE #443

Textbook retailers have cut back on their price discounts, in some cases up to 7%, a move that adds to the heavy burden of parents on textbook expenditure for this academic year 2013/14.

According to the annual textbook expenditure survey of the Consumer Council, parents have to defray, from HK$1,361 to HK$3,233, an average of HK$2,399 for textbooks for one child in the primary sector.

In the secondary sector, the textbook expenditure differs from a low HK$248 to a high HK$6,505 - at an average of HK$2,489. Parents with more than one child in school will find their textbook expenditure increased rather steeply this year.

The cutback in price discounts by some textbook retailers is believed to be a key factor attributed to the rise of 5% and 5.1% year-on-year in overall textbook expenditure for the primary and secondary sectors respectively.

Unlike previous years, the clampdown on discounts is more widespread among textbook retailers raising concerns that such a trend will further aggregate what already is a heavy annual burden to many parents.

It was revealed in the survey that 44.7% or 21 out of 47 primary schools surveyed had less discounts offered by textbook retailers ranging from 1% to 7%.

In the secondary sector, 57.1% or 24 out of 42 schools surveyed received 5% less discounts this year.

But not all discounts were down, in a few cases, the discounts actually went up - 1 primary school was 2% more than last year while 2 secondary schools were respectively 1% and 2% higher in discounts through school group purchase arrangement for their students.

Another factor that may have an impact on the textbook expenditure for the year, was attributed to changes in book versions and in book selection by the schools.

For example, some schools changed the books for such subjects as Liberal Studies or Life and Society for junior secondary classes from a combined Regular Version to separate Unit Versions which may or may not increase the expenditure depending on the schools in the choice of the number of Unit Versions needed.

Some schools were found to switch from school-based materials which are produced internally by the schools and made available free to their students, to textbooks produced by publishers for sales.

Schools are recommended to provide salient information on the booklists to help parents reduce their expenditure such as indication that the required textbook has already been purchased in a previous academic year and is not necessary for repurchase.

The edition of the textbooks should be clearly stated to enable parents to ascertain if the textbooks left by the elder siblings of the students are still suitable for use and save the purchase of new textbooks.

The book lists could also give the ISBN number (where multiple editions by the same or different publishers exist) to help parents avoid buying the wrong books.