VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Education and Training’s estimates of the costs of  the textbook recompilation program have faced harsh criticism from the public.

Several months ago, a deputy minister of MOET drew public ire after commenting at a conference that the ministry needs to spend VND34 trillion on a textbook recompilation program. The money was described by education experts as “beyond any estimate”.

MOET’s Minister Pham Vu Luan, in an effort to calm the fires, explained that this was just a figure suggested by a partner who had consulted with the ministry. He said MOET would submit a detailed plan on textbook recompilation to the National Assembly.

The plan was submitted by the ministry to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on September 27. Costs are predicted to be VND778.8 billion.

The plan shows great efforts made by MOET to save the state budget money by cutting estimates from VND34 trillion to VND778.8 billion.

Luan said that it would take VND462 billion to make preparations for textbook compilers and others.

It is expected that in the first period, there would be four sets of textbooks to be compiled by MOET, organizations and individuals.

MOET will also act as a textbook compiler, and it would auction the textbooks’ copyright. The money to be collected from the royalty will be handed in to the state budget.

In addition, another sum of VND316.8 billion would be spent on compiling local education materials. The money would be needed to prepare local educators, give support to teachers in remote and difficult areas, and record lectures to post on the internet.

Of the total sum of money budgeted for the textbook recompilation program, VND504.4 billion would come from the state budget, while the remaining VND274.4 billion would come from local budgets.

However, a parent commented that VND800 billion would not be the total cost, because MOET, when submitting the plan, warned that the sum may be higher.

Meanwhile, Associate Professor Van Nhu Cuong, a renowned educator, now headmaster of Luong The Vinh High School, commented on Infonet that the textbook compilation program designed by MOET was too expensive, and that VND200-300 billion would be enough to renovate the curricula and recompile textbooks.

“I think that compilers would have to design lesson plans for 10,000 teaching periods from the first to the 12th grade,” he said.

In the past, authors were paid VND500,000 for every period’s lesson plans. And if the wages were raised to VND1 million, it would cost VND10 billion to compile a set of textbooks.

Meanwhile, the spending on textbook assessment, editing and some other works will not be higher than VND10 billion.

As such, according to Cuong, it would take no more than VND20 billion to compile a set of textbooks, and if there are four sets of textbooks, the total sum would be VND80 billion, much lower than MOET’s estimate of VND462 billion.