Jim O'Keeffe
Question:127 Mr. J. O'Keeffe asked the Minister for Education if she will outline the arrangements in her Department to monitor the content and price of school text books.
Written Answers. - School Text Books.
My Department operates a system of approval of textbooks for national schools and through this approval mechanism the content of school textbooks is monitored.
As the publication and sale of school books are in the hands of private companies it is not open to me to influence their pricing policy. The syllabus planners try to avoid over-frequent changes and are conscious that they should avoid any unnecessary increase in costs. However, textbooks must be changed from time to time if teachers are to keep their work educationally stimulating, and if content and methodology are to be kept reasonably up to date.
In so far as second level education is concerned, textbooks are prepared and published by commercial publishers on the basis of the programmes prescribed by my Department for each subject. Formal approval of the published texts is not required but they are expected to conform to the officially prescribed programmes. The suitability of textbooks in use is monitored by the Department's inspectors in the course of school inspection and, as required, in consultation with publishers.
My Department is aware of the financial strain placed on parents of school pupils in providing school textbooks for their children, and has drawn the attention of school authorities to the desirability of changing non-prescribed textbooks as infrequently as possible, in order to save parents undue expenditure.