Facing heavy financial burden
I refer to the report headlined, 'Parents 'should help select textbooks' ', by Shirley Kwok, which appeared in the South China Morning Post, on July 29.
It was reported that the Committee on Home-School Co-operation had said it was unfair for parents who paid for their children's textbooks to be denied a say over which books should be used.
The committee chairman said parents were presently having to pay the money, even if they were unhappy with the prices.
Consequently, publishers just kept pushing up prices. However, the Hong Kong Educational Publishers Association said publishers had to revise textbooks after the handover and the production of more Chinese-medium textbooks raised its production costs. It is true that prices increase each year.
This is a heavy financial burden for poor families which are not able to get any sort of allowance.
In order to lighten this financial load, publishers should offer larger discounts at bookstores.
Also, publishers should not do such frequent revisions of their books.
With so many revisions, it is difficult for students to buy and sell old books.
I think that publishers act irresponsibly by bringing out their new editions at the end of August or even in mid-September.
I wonder why the Government has done nothing when so many parents and students complain about publishers.
SHADOW CHENG New Territories
