11.26
In order to provide a better advisory and loan service to schools, it is felt that transport facilities should be made available to the visual education centre for the delivery of equipment and to enable the necessary technical back-up services to be provided.
Supply of textbooks
11.27
The recommended list of school textbooks was described in Chapter 4, In order to produce this list, publishers submit books to a Text- books Committee which arranges their reviewing.
11.28
Each textbook is reviewed independently by two voluntary reviewers. The two reviews are coordinated, a decision made as to whether the book is to be recommended, banned or unclassified, and a report returned to the publisher. Unfortunately, because the reviewing is voluntary and the volume to be reviewed large, the process is rather slow.
11.29
It is therefore proposed that in future, textbook reviewers, who are normally teachers, should be paid and a rigid timetable for reviewing established. Because publishers are anxious for a speedy service, it is therefore recommended that the Education Department should negotiate with them to work out a system of reviewing based on the principle that the publishers should pay an agreed service charge to cover the costs of the payment to reviewers and the administration of the scheme. In return, the publishers would gain a faster service with fixed time limits within which a review would be completed.
11.30
In Hong Kong there is no centrally co-ordinated service for the supply of textbooks. Schools produce textbook lists, and parents buy the required books either from appropriate retailers or through the school. In the United Kingdom and other western countries free primary education usually includes the provision of textbooks, and it is therefore appropriate to consider whether Hong Kong should adopt this system.
11.31
Needy pupils in Government and Aided primary schools who cannot afford to buy textbooks can apply for a textbook and stationery grant at the rate of $30.00 per annum. The maximum number of grants a school can allocate is normally 20% of its approved enrolment although permission can be given for this quota to be exceeded. In practice the grant does not cover the cost of the books.
11.32
Careful consideration has been given to two possible courses of action either to loan books to pupils free of charge as in the United Kingdom or to increase the textbook grant.
11.33
While neither of these schemes are ruled out, the problem must be considered in conjunction with the lower secondary level where there is at present no textbook grant and where the cost of textbooks is considerably greater. It is therefore not proposed to make firm recommendations for the solution of this problem. It is however suggested that the whole question of the supply of textbooks to pupils undergoing free and compulsory education should be reviewed.
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