Amid appalling standards of English and Chinese, and criticisms about the allocation of school places and examination systems, the Education Department should also look into the cost of textbooks, which are escalating in a disproportionate fashion.

We are talking about nearly $10,000 per academic year for a child. Are the textbooks absolutely necessary? Why are children buying and reading more books and the language standards are still going down? What controlling mechanism does the department have to monitor the costs and standards of textbooks?

In Britain, textbooks are provided by state schools free of charge, which is how it should be in a truly free education system.