The production of renewable textbooks is on schedule and institutions will receive all textbooks in time for the new school year, the Minister of State for Public Education announced.
Judit Czunyiné Bertalan stated at the press conference following the inspection of the Alföldi Printing Company that the textbooks emerging from the printing-house will be dispatched to the Library Supplier’s (Könyvtárellátó) warehouses, and the distribution of textbooks will begin by a predetermined deadline.
The textbooks, which are considered new with regard to their contents, methodology and technology, have been developed from 4.6 billion forints (EUR 14.8 million), including EU funding, and will be first used in schools in the academic year beginning in September. The Minister of State added that a total of 50 textbooks (62 volumes) – adapted to the curriculum, in a phase-out system – are being published, of which 862 thousand copies have been ordered by 1,501 schools, and a further 126 schools and 966 teachers have applied to use textbooks for a trial period.
The textbooks were written by professionals, college and university teachers and practicing educators with vast experience in producing school literature. The new teaching materials are designed for the first, second, fifth and sixth primary school grades, and for ninth and tenth secondary school grades. The textbooks will be dispatched to schools by 31 August, Judit Czunyiné Bertalan said.
The majority of the renewable textbooks will be made available at a cost of 350-400 forints per volume. For this amount – contrary to the previous, multi-agent system – parents will receive an affordable textbook, which is long-lasting with regard to quality and contents, and which “is great value for money”, emphasised Judit Czunyiné Bertalan.
She added that the textbook supply system has saved 1.5 billion forints (EUR 4.8 million) with this series of textbooks; 1 billion forints of which will go to the state, with the remaining 0.5 billion remaining in the families’ purses.
An essential element of public education reform was that – through high quality textbooks produced in accordance with uniform content aspects and a good public education system – every child born in Hungary shall be provided with an opportunity to get ahead through knowledge, the Minister of State pointed out.
Parliamentary State Secretary Bence Rétvári from the Ministry of Human Resources stressed at the press conference that the renewable textbooks represent a quality improvement within the Hungarian public education system.
These textbooks are produced in good quality and with lasting technology, they “can endure a lot of wear and tear”, and can serve several members and generations of the family, he stated. Apart from being dispatched in due time, they will save money for both families and the state and are better and more modern than the previous ones, Mr. Rétvári said.
József Kaposi, General Director of the Hungarian Institute for Educational Research and Development (OFI), confirmed that each and every one of the renewable teaching materials could hold its own against other textbooks on the market, thanks to the fact that a host of excellent authors and editors were invited to write them and a huge amount of prior experience was successfully incorporated, he added.
Mayor of Debrecen Lajos Kósa (Fidesz) indicated that he welcomed the fact that the Alföldi Printing Company, the oldest printing company in the country, also took part in printing of the renewable textbooks. Equal opportunities for children are better served by the new form of textbook supply and by renewable textbooks, he pointed out.
General Manager of the company Géza György stated that in the past eight-ten weeks more than four million – one hundred truckloads – of textbooks had been produced by Alföldi Printing House. A quarter of these was the renewable textbooks commissioned by OFI, he explained.
The last copies of the renewable textbooks rolled off the production line in the presence of Judit Czunyiné Bertalan, Bence Rétvári and Lajos Kósa.