It has been a warning since the end of the previous school year and it ended like this: the delay in the development of the new education law at the beginning of this school year will cause various problems. The latest observation was that the school year began with a shortage of textbooks in educational centers across the territory, as reported by families and schools and institutions, and confirmed by ANELE, the association of publishers of these materials.
Spanish centers lack books, it depends on the publishing house to supply them. According to the publishers, the problem is that things are running late this year and that rising production costs (paper costs about 30% more) have forced companies to adjust their circulation almost to demand: books don’t get printed if they don’t. It is known that they are going to sell to avoid losses.
Book subscriptions usually begin in the spring, when each teacher chooses the textbook to use for the next term, and that decision is passed on to families. But this year, due to the change in the law, it could not be done in the usual period due to the aforementioned delay.
Publishers prepare textbooks based on official curricula approved by the autonomous communities. They, in turn, create their curricula based on the minimum curricula approved by the Ministry. And here’s the apportionment of blame: Education published its texts between February (for infants) and April (for undergraduates) this year, giving regional governments enough time to do their part. Some obeyed, but there are topics that have not been published yet, and they note that the Ministry approved the texts too late, that it is a difficult technical and legal process and there was no time.
Between one and the other, canceled books. And when they’re made, they’re not printed in large quantities, Anelli says, to avoid fear. “Without making summaries and without a prescription, they didn’t know how many books they would need, and with the current costs, companies didn’t want to take some risks, so the logistical planning they usually do. In June (printing, etc.) was postponed. In fact, the publishers received requests in September and had to start the process to attend them,” the spokesperson explained. The Association of Publishers assures that it will be resolved “within days”.
The messages that some regional governments have sent to their education communities have not helped, the spokesman continued: “In Catalonia, during the teachers’ strike at the end of last year, the minister told the teachers that he was leaving them. implementation of the law in two years (according to the plan) or three years; In Madrid, the deputy minister sent a circular to the centers saying that there would be no need to replace the books, and some waited to see what finally happened before they saw the law change enough to require new ones. . More to come later.
Scarcity does not affect any community in particular. It depends, Anel says, on each publishing house. tion that books are missing comes from the centers of Galicia, the Balearic Islands, Madrid or Aragon. Centers are not worried, assuming that the delay will not take longer than expected. “These first days are used for review and initial evaluation,” says the director, who believes that in the meantime the materials will fall into a difficult course, which will entail a methodological change and in which the support of the books, the time to propose activities or learning situations that the law brings, perhaps seems more important, than other years, at least at first.
Source: El Diario
