Imagine spending 16 years in school watching your teacher writing long texts on the blackboard and then copying them. How much knowledge do you think you would have acquired if your classroom time was spent in this way?
In many FTI Partner countries, textbooks are conspicuously absent from schools – from primary to higher education. And the effects of “print poverty’’ on performance are big: students scoring in the 98 percentile of tests may read 4.7 million words per year, or 67 minutes per day, while those scoring in the 10th percentile may read 51,000 words per year or 1 minute a day (Anderson, Fielding, and Wilson 1988).
Many countries lack sufficient capacity to print millions of textbooks, so they must be printed abroad. International competitive bidding takes a long time and unwittingly favors foreign suppliers. Collusion and rigged bidding raise prices inordinately (read Disappearing books: Greed or policy mistakes or both? by my colleague Luis Crouch). Textbooks may be ordered once every five years, and as they wear out they become scarce. The result is both scarcity and high prices. In Malawi, for example, the 2009 Country Status Report showed that 94% of first graders and 34% of eighth graders had no books. And the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) statistics reported that only 42% of students had textbooks in 2000 and in 2007. No progress over all those years.
Importation and prices limit availability, and textbooks in some countries cannot be bought at any price anywhere – except on the black market where private schools and better-off students are the primary customers (see the example of Mozambique in Illegal Sale of School Books Continues in All Africa.com). They are stolen at various points of the distribution system, often from schools, and sold in the streets. In one country they were being sold right outside the Ministry of Education!
Advice on increasing textbook choice may have made the situation worse. Multiple versions of textbooks result in the printing of small lots that cost even more. If schools are asked to choose and pay with their budgets, they find that they can only afford a few. If a principle must decide whether to buy textbooks or fix leaking roofs, the choice is obvious.
And quality often is nothing to write home about. Given the need to keep prices low, textbooks are often skimpy, little more than outlines and in several, the valuable paper is used up by large pictures or parts are left blank. Those of us who went to school using thick, informative, illustrative books would be surprised to see 75-pagers on high school math, 50 pages for grade 1 basic literacy.
So do teachers and parents complain about this deficiency? Rarely. The earlier generations went to school without textbooks so they think of this as a “natural” way to study. This is also what I saw in Nepal as World Bank task manager around 1992. Nepalese students only studied from handwritten notes in secondary and higher education. Some had inherited the notes of certain university courses from their fathers!
Thus the classrooms become the most expensive copying centers in the world. Students spend their time painstakingly taking down dictation and drawing designs, either from blackboard copying or through verbatim dictation. Predictably, they do not do well in exams. Only 8.6% of students were reaching minimum level of mastery in the 2005 SACMEQ. And since they get little reading practice, they read very slowly at advanced ages. University students in Mali were informally measured and read about 109 words per minute. (this is grade 4 fluency in the US). Needless to say, this is no way to gain 21st century skills.
Perhaps the biggest African problem is an information deficit at all levels. For all of us who are used to textbooks being abundant and reasonably priced the situation is hard to imagine. It’s simply impossible to improve quality of education with this deficit. Because knowledge is cumulative and instructional time is poorly used, students may learn little additional material in school.
Affordable and available textbooks should be a policy priority for the FTI partner countries, but the problem is complex. But how to proceed? Any ideas?
Learn more
Disappearing books: Greed or policy mistakes or both? by Luis Crouch (Education for all Blog, April 12, 2011)
Illegal Sale of School Books Continues (All Africa.com, March 11, 2011)
Anderson, R. C., L. G. Fielding, and P. T. Wilson. 1988. Growth in reading and how children spend their time outside of school. Reading Research Quarterly 23: 285–304.
Ms. Abadzi:
This is a very interesting and informative blog. I wonder what is being done to encourage textbooks production and writing within developing countries like Africa. Maybe getting educators together to write culturally sensitive texts and have them produced locally – which would be cheaper I would think than importing them.
Maggie de Jongh also mentions a good, cheap method to print these texts once they are completed. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
I am currently writing a children’s novel with an African protagonist in the hope that it will be the type of book that African kids will enjoy reading and feel that they can relate to.
There is certainly a need for children’s books in local languages. Are you writing it and/or can you translate it in a few?
What an interesting idea – translating my book into different languages! Why did that not occur to me? I am from Kenya and I can translate it into Swahili. I mostly was thinking along the lines that you did – getting disadvantaged kids to read. I am an English and Education major and I know that most young people will read books that they feel that they can relate to. Of course making them accessible to this population is another issue… I need to get a hold of your 2005 article on reading fluency to get a better grasp on this issue.
Thank you for that idea. Also
Dear Stephen,
Thank you for the response, it never hurts to discuss these matters.
I am aware of import duties on paper and other materials. This is why we, along with some partners from development agencies/printer associations etc., are discussing this matter with the Ministry of Education in each country that we are active. As you might know, Mauritius is an excellent example of the government facilitating a prosperous print industry (they export to many African countries). This is thus an example of where it has worked already.
We are trying to make the supply lines of paper to the production facility as short as possible and to that end we are collaborating with several global paper suppliers.
Considering the benefits of local production (we have calculated the price reduction in several countries amounts to 30-40%) in terms of acces to affordable, quality books (we only use machines with the latest technology and I would like to note that it is especially the binding process that has fallen behind in Africa), increased employment and crafstmanship we thus see a great need for our project in many developing countries.
I would like to reassure you that my employer Mr. de Haas and his partners have over 40 years of experience in the graphic world so they are well aware of the conditions that a modern book production facility has to be in. These requirements have all been adopted in the construction plans and the budget.
With regard to constant running, our print capacity will supersede the capacity to produce educational books so we will also print commercially. Moreover, one should keep in mind that the African educational demand in books is only growing. We have a long term vision: a book for every child- in every subject and level and let us not forget about the teacher guides and tertiary materials. The rising enrolment rates will soon reflect in the demand for books in secondary and higher education so the demand continues to increase.
The project’s financial sustainability has been confirmed by KPMG. KPMG financially administers all project to ensure transparency.
I appreciate your comments but we believe that it is time for African countries to take matters into their own hands and your preference for production in Asia only continues the foreign dependency of developing countries. I do not contest that there will be obstacles to overcome in creating a print industry in these countries but 1. the demand is huge and on the rise 2. we include many experts and organizations such as the FTI, ADEA, UNESCO and numerous civil society organizations in our effort to create a thriving African book industry and a common strategy to overcome obstacles and turn it into a succes.
Dear Maggie,
Yes, Mauritius is subsidised with tax breaks from what I understand, and I agree they have printed a lot of books for countries in SS Africa in the past (no more than 5% of the demand however in SS Africa overall), not sure how active they are now? They of course rely on contracts from Africa and their exports, which will stop if you have your way, so it will no longer be a success story.
Good luck with the paper manufacturers. I’d be surprised if you can get any better deal than commercial publishers…and you still have the storage issue. However, I’m sure it can be done. Question is can you o it any cheaper?
Who will do the publishing? Are you expecting Govts to publish their own books? I think this debate started with Malawi, where Dfid funded State publishing which has been an unmitigated disaster? Commerical publishers will print where the margin is best for them, and the World Bank/ other donors, unless there is a huge change in policy, wont interfere.
No point binding a book beyond its likely 3 year life span. Most books have good binding, those printed in Asia anyway, by commercial puiblishers. Certain criteria demand it, Govt ensure it is included in contracts they award.
Other than textbooks, the demand is limited. Certainly printing non-educational books won’t help keeping the press running. Besides, they use different paper, have different formats, inks, colours…?
Who is going to pay for all these books? The Govt? Well for the last 15 years no government has bought books even close to the qtys needed. No donor has supported the regular purchase of books in the quantities needed? Govts aren’t going to print more books because they’re cheaper, they print what they can get away with, in much the same way every govt does the absolute minumum.
Teachers Guides! And Tertiary Materials! Please, tecahers guides are insignifcant compared to the number of textbooks. And tertiary books? Which publisher will allow you to print tertiary books locally? Most teritary books need to be printed for the “Global Market”, the qtys are insignificant for one country alone.
I would like to see KPMG report. Where is all the funding coming from to buy books Govt or Donors? What has changed in the last 15 years, except in the last 2 years governments have less money to spend. And you have to build factories, air conditioned, clean, generators, fuel, machinery, paper, publish, print and distribute the books? And you think it’s more viable than the current number of commerical publishers and printers?
I admire your determination, but it seems to me you are looking at the situation from a ideological point of view, and not a practical point of view? FTI, ADEA and UNESCO, I’m sure they can offer valuable advice, but you are re-inventing the wheel. Nevertheless, good-luck.
Dear Stephen,
Thank you for the response, it never hurts to discuss these matters.
I am aware of import duties on paper and other materials. This is why we, along with some partners from development agencies/printer associations etc., are discussing this matter with the Ministry of Education in each country that we are active.
As you might know, Mauritius is an excellent example of the government facilitating a prosperous print industry (they export to many African countries). This is thus an example of where it has worked already.
Considering the benefits of local production (we have calculated the price reduction in several countries amounts to 30-40%) in terms of acces to affordable, quality books (we only use machines with the latest technology and I would like to note that it is especially the binding process that has fallen behind in Africa), increased employment and crafstmanship we thus see a great need for our project in many developing countries.
I would like to reassure you that my employer Mr. de Haas and his partners have over 40 years of experience in the graphic world so they are well aware of the conditions that a modern book production facility has to be in. These requirements have all been adopted in the construction plans and the budget.
With regard to constant running, our print capacity will supersede the capacity to produce educational books so we will also print commercially. Moreover, one should keep in mind that the African educational demand in books is only growing. We have a long term vision: a book for every child- in every subject and level and let us not forget about the teacher guides and tertiary materials. The rising enrolment rates will soon reflect in the demand for books in secondary and higher education so the demand continues to increase.
We will establish a sustainable print facility that makes a profit after the second year of operation (although this might vary somewhat along the country). The financial sustainability is confirmed by KPMG and they will conduct the financial auditing to ensure transparency.
I appreciate your comments but we believe that it is time for African countries to take matters into their own hands and your preference for production in Asia only continues the foreign dependency of developing countries. I do not contest that there will be obstacles to overcome in creating a print industry in these countries but 1. the demand is huge and on the rise 2. we include many experts and organizations such as the FTI, ADEA, UNESCO and numerous civil society organizations in our effort to create a thriving African book industry and a common strategy to overcome obstacles and turn it into a success.
Hello Stephen,
Please explain to us what your job is and your experiences with textbook production. We can then understand better the issues that you raise.
I must admit when I read this article I thought how ill-informed the author was. Clearly the author hadn’t done any research, or understood any of the issues. Should such articles be published as they misrepresent the facts?
Where to start…printing. For a developing country to print books locally is simply un-economical. Printing presses need to run continuously, paper needs to be manufactured, stored under optimal conditions (for minimal periods otherwise it degrades), inks too. Countries need electricity, do you know how expensive it is to run printing presses or paper storage facilities off diesal powered generators in Africa for instance? Printing textbooks alone is not economimcally viable, it is cheaper to do it in Asia where they have the paper mills, and the economics of scale. At best Kenya does some local printing, but as one of the best funded textbook markets in Africa it has the scale, but even so is 15-20% more expensive than printing in Asia (including shipping from Asia)
ICB’s don’t take a long time (where are you getting this information)? They take as long as it is necessary to evaluate the bids, most can be done in a month, printing 100,000s of textbooks weeks, and shipping a matter of weeks, plenty of time to get books into schools for the start of the school year. The delays come from distribution, done mainly by the Ministry of Education locally (which is where most of the theft originates).
Malawi is a disaster because of Dfid staff in 2007/8, and the Dfid policy to support the publication of textbooks locally at the CDC Min of Ed. It was criminal from the start, Dfid and their consultants completely out of their depth, making decisions to keep themselves in contract, destroying a local publishing industry and making 100s of local people redundant, wasting million of pounds in the process and lowering standards. In the first year children went to school with a pamphlet (3rd of a book), because CDC couldn’t publish quick enough, they didn’t have the experience or the knowledge. Quality fell, delays upon delays, but Dfid did nothing about it, sat back at the club, and hoped no-one would notice. For years primnary school children in Malawi suffered, but Dfid hid its mistake, and blamed Minstry of Education for the failing system.
Books are stolen for a variety of reasons and from a variety of places? Do you honestly think printing locally would stop this? Teachers sell the books themselves because they are so poorly paid but you don’t raise this issue, yet it is why the majority of books are sold/stolen.
Competition drives prices down, and a well managed ICB can do this, and has proven to do this. Most donors however are too lazy to manage the process and review the evaluation themselves, leaving it to local officials who, when paid peanuts, find the only way they can possibly supplment their meagre salary (support their own childrens education, provide health care for their wider family, look to their future because they know pensions are non-existant, buy food, seeds, fertilizer for crops, and fuel for generators), is to make money when they can from commerical companies who can afford it for the most part. World Bank drives fraud because it forces donw bureaucrats salaries, and has done for years.
Again, mulitple books increasing costs is nonsense. What research have you done? For up to 30,000 copies the print price may vary but beyond it doesn’t matter whether you print 30,000 or 100,000 the price per unit is practically identical. As most publishers are printing a minimum of 30,000 per level of a primary school book, suggesting that having a single textbook would be cheaper is not true.
Quality and the thickness of textbooks? I can’t believe you were allowed to publish this article. The size of a textbook depends on the syllabus, which is mainly written by consultants employed by Dfid, World Bank and others, usually on $500 a day or more plus expenses (bureaucrats getting about $250 month for a deputy Minister) . The guidelines they set are then followed by authors and publishers. Their incompetence generally leads to books being published which meet the syllabus criteria on which they will be evaluated, but are diffiuclt for teachers to use in the classroom. Second, the level of competence in schools in the developing world is incredibly low, lower than Dfid/ World bank FTI would dare admit, because to do so would show that Free Basic Education has failed Africa and elsewhere. Only now in their new strategy for education 2020 are the World Bank realising their failures and that of other donors, especially Dfid.
I am sorry this entire article is ill-informed, poorly researched and very dangerous. It shows a level of incompetence that I would not excpect at FTI. It is unfortunately common among donors and their employees, who dream -up unrealistic strategies for tackling poverty and education in Africa, hide the facts to secure further funding and extend contracts to people that don’t deserve it. The entire article is a sad reflection on many in the donor community whose behaviour is geared more towards securing their own future, than that of those in the developing world.
Hello Steven,
Through this blog we are trying to pose questions and find answers. Well-founded criticism is most welcome, but ad hominem attacks are not, particularly when directed against people unknown to you. If you have experiences and actual suggestions on solving various aspects of the textbook problem, you are very welcome to write them.
I apologise if I offended anyone, but people need to stop dancing around the edges and speak plainly. There is far too much at stake. Simply adopting World Bank policy for reasons of appeasement, or to gain favour or funding is not the answer. The World Bank’s job is to lend money and collect interest payments. An analogy is that it acts as a drug dealer, feeding the machine…it doesn’t manage the projects, it just feeds in the cash and collects the interest, and when the project fails, it feeds another one or helps repair what’s broken. So much is wasted. Many don’t realise that the dominant decisions in The Bank are made by the political desk, not the humanitarian desk. The success of a project isn’t necessarily what you’d expect.
Now, Maggie de Jongh. Sounds great in principle, but I’m afraid doomed to failure. Textbooks, study aids, in the vast majority of countries don’t attract import duty, but paper does. Paper will still need to be imported so you will have transport costs, and Govts charge tax on paper. Paper as a commodity is traded in US dollars, you can’t avoid it, you can’t buy paper overseas in Kwacha, Soum, Shillings etc. So it wont reduce costs. The latest technology needs to be housed in clean, dust-free, airconditioned, secure, powered (constant regular power) warehouses…otherwise the machinery will break-down. You can’t run these machines without generators, which means buying fuel, storing fuel etc. They need constant use, stop-start means waste, and waste paper + ink costs governments money. You naturally have waste at the beginning and end of a print run (as paper, inks and machines warm-up), large long print runs are essential…that is why people go to Asia where machines are run 24/7. The only way to get cheaper books is for the govt to subsidise the cost. In my experience, govt controlled printing is a non-starter. I am sorry if that sounds rude, but it’s the truth.
Brilliant article! Thanks for writing this very informative article. I learned a lot and enlightened at the same time. Education is really important and everyone should have it.
Dear Mrs. Abadzi,
With delight I read your article on print poverty. My name is Maggie de Jongh and I am human rights consultant for the project ”Books for the other 90 per cent”.
This project is directly aimed at combating the print poverty you discuss.
With 35 years of experience in selling second hand graphic machines, the company I work for, Euro Graphic Services BV, decided to start a project that increases access to affordable, quality books through the enhancement of national printing capacity in developing countries.
We are currently in the process of realizing this project in Congo-Brazzaville, Mali, Zambia, Liberia and Suriname. We will provide the print facilities with print and bind machinery of the latest technology and train the local people in their effective usage, maintenance and repair for a period of 2 years. The establishment of a national print facility will decrease the price of books by avoiding transport costs, import duties, currency reates etc. Moreover, it will create employment and craftsmanship in the country.
Our ultimate goal is access to affordable, quality books for all children, notwithstanding their socio-economic background.
If you wish to know more about this exciting process feel free to contact me. My email address is maggiedejongh@gmail.com. The website of the project is http://www.booksfortheother90percent.com/ and the website of the company is http://www.egs.nl.
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
Maggie de Jongh
Dear Maggie, thanks for your comment. It’s great that you are doing this. We are brainstorming at this moment. I will get in touch with you by email.
Sounds great in principle, but I’m afraid doomed to failure. Textbooks, study aids, in the vast majority of countries don’t attract import duty, but paper does. Paper will still need to be imported so you will have transport costs, and Govts charge tax on paper. Paper as a commodity is traded in US dollars, you can’t avoid it, you can’t buy paper overseas in Kwacha, Soum, Shillings etc. So it wont reduce costs. The latest technology needs to be housed in clean, dust-free, airconditioned, secure, powered (constant regular power) warehouses…otherwise the machinery will break-down, be stolen. You can’t run these machines without generators, which means buying fuel, storing fuel etc. They need constant use, stop-start means waste, and waste paper + ink costs governments money. You naturally have waste at the beginning and end of a print run (as paper, inks and machines warm-up), large long print runs are essential…that is why people go to Asia where machines are run 24/7. The only way to get cheaper books is for the govt to subsidise the cost (i think in SA they do but not sure, local printers have some political clout). In my experience, govt controlled printing is a non-starter. I am sorry if that sounds rude, but it’s the truth. If you are prepared to manage it for 10 years, oversee it and re-invest millions of dollars, you might get somewhere. If you are looking to print text-books, funded by governments or donors, the criteria for manufacture/ minimum standards can be found in tender documents. You will probably be better off supporting/ investing in a local newspaper printer, who will have the expertise, be commercially savvy and local.