Effective & affordable educational materials for Irish schools The recession, whilst undoubtedly extraordinarily difficult, has brought some improvements in it's wake. Foremost amongst these is the need to examine more closely how and why we are spending our money and asking ourselves how more value could be achieved and whether we could do things a little differently.



The rising costs of textbooks is an issue year after dreary year and whilst everyone agrees that something should be done - quite what that something should be is a matter of hot debate. Technology, usually in the form of hand held tablets, is often touted as the best solution but they don't automatically supply the actual learning materials. These ebooks can often cost even more than the printed version. While they do reduce the weight of the schoolbags, they increase the pressure on the wallet. Concerns about breakability are also on the list.



The Government has appealed to the educational book companies to cease new editions for 5 years to which they agreed. Doesn't exactly explain the plethora of new editions on this years booklists. Book publishing, even educational book publishing, is a business much like any other and they exist to make money. I don't blame them. I don't work for free and I'm sure you don't either. My objection is the relentless profiteering in what is essentially a captive and very lucrative market.



Relentless profiteering as a phrase might seem a little harsh until you do some simple maths. It is estimated that the annual spend on the average primary school booklist is about €100 per child. There are in the region of 3,300 primary schools providing services to roughly 500,000 young students - a figure that is rapidly rising with books representing the single largest expense at back to school time. That equates to market worth €50 million each and every year with only a few competitors fighting it out for their share. I'll bet they are NOT lying awake at night trying to work out how to reduce costs. Well, ok, maybe their costs but not ours.

You, like me, might have fondly imagined that these are special publishing companies with a unique set of qualifications and permissions to produce the very best in educational materials sanctioned by the Department of Education and judged to be the very best available at explaining facts, figures and concepts to our young Einsteins. Simply not so. The publishers invite submissions of books from authors (often teachers but not always) or commission a particular book. Teachers are hired to ensure that the book meets the basic guidelines of the curriculum. Reps are hired to push these books on the schools as being the latest and greatest thing and the teachers have to pick from whatever is offered whilst admitting that there is no one great book for any class or subject area. Really? €50 million a year and that's as good as it gets?



No studies are conducted, not even informally, to compare one method of explaining a concept versus another. No input is requested of either the students themselves or the parents bankrupting themselves to pay for them with little or no proof as to how well they perform as a learning tool. In fact, I would posit that given the sinking grades and general standard of education, we have a lot of proof to suggest that we are not getting a lot of bang for our €50 million. That kind of money, year on year, could run hospitals, defeat homelessness or even take a chunk off the national deficit. Why, after all these years, has it not produced a set of books that make learning and indeed teaching, ridiculously easy and fun? Why do we still need grinds? Surely if a student were struggling in a subject, they could just read through their €50 million book that has spent years in development by supposed experts and it would all become clear, no?