The local textbook market has been seriously distorted with prices increasing almost annually. It's a long-running problem that has effectively pitted publishers against parents, making the latter feel they are being held to ransom.
The Education Bureau and textbook publishers have locked horns over the price issue for the past four years, with no resolution in sight. Negotiations broke down earlier this week, with publishers withholding the release of their price lists of textbooks for the coming school year, and complaining to the Ombudsman about the bureau's inconsistent policy.
The crux of the problem is the bundling of textbooks with teaching materials provided to schools. Textbook prices are high mainly because publishers add the cost of producing teaching aids - such as CD-Roms that are provided free to the schools - to the cost of the textbooks sold to students. In other words, parents have been forced to subsidise teaching tools.
In 2009, the government demanded that publishers separate the sale of teaching materials and textbooks. The plan was to be rolled out in 2010, but was deferred after publishers objected. Last year, the publishing companies eventually agreed to do this in three years, while the government banned schools from accepting freebies from publishers.
At the same time, Secretary for Education Michael Suen Ming-yeung made it clear that the government would push the development of an e-textbook market to introduce competition and break the publishers' monopoly.
This year, when it became clear that prices for most textbooks published without revisions would remain the same or increase, even if they did not come bundled with teaching materials, Suen announced a policy U-turn and said schools could again accept free materials. Publishers reacted by withdrawing the price lists they had submitted.