All publishers allowed to produce, sell prescribed textbooks
All publishers allowed to produce, sell prescribed textbooks
JAKARTA (JP): The government threw its weight behind
publishers' calls to be allowed to publish prescribed school
textbooks on Thursday, saying it would be helpful to the
government's efforts to provide textbooks for schools throughout
the country.
"The government has limited resources for the procurement of
prescribed school textbooks. We have to cooperate with various
institutions, including publishers, to address the problem,"
Minister of National Education Abdul Malik Fajar told reporters
after opening a seminar here on Thursday.
Allowing publishers to enter such business, would help efforts
to meet the increasing demand for prescribed school textbooks, he
added.
Malik Fajar was responding to a call by the Indonesian
Publishers Association (IKAPI) that the government allow all
publishers to produce and sell prescribed school textbooks,
currently dominated by certain publishers who obtain the right
through "unfair" bidding process.
The tender system has been widely criticized as being rampant
with collusion and corruption.
However, he added, the government and IKAPI would work
together to monitor the quality of the textbooks produced by the
publishers so that they met national standards and were according
to the national curricula.
In addition, Malik Fajar said, schools would also have the
freedom of choosing their own textbooks according to their needs.
Currently, schools do not have the authority to choose their
own textbooks. The prescribed textbooks were supplied by the
government.
The head of the Book Center (Pusbuk) at the Ministry of
National Education, Agam Suchad, told The Jakarta Post that in
the future, Pusbuk would no longer produce prescribed school
textbooks and that schools would be free to choose their own
textbooks.
Pusbuk will also maintain its function of controlling the
quality of the school textbooks produced by the publishers to
ensure they were in accordance with school curricula.
"The government will still have to control the quality of
school textbooks, from the quality of the writers up to the
production process. Pusbuk will study the books before and after
they are published," Agam said.
Agam also said that to enable schools to buy textbooks from
publishers, the government would provide funds in the form of a
block grant. (07)