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Confusion mars implementation of e-books policy
The implementation of the electronic school textbook (e-books) policy has been met with glitches, with parents of students forced to buy expensive textbooks for the new academic year
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The implementation of the electronic school textbook (e-books) policy has been met with glitches, with parents of students forced to buy expensive textbooks for the new academic year.
Heru Narsono, whose son goes to an elementary school in Rawamangun, East Jakarta, said other parents were charged Rp 345,900 (US$37) each for 11 different school textbooks for their children.
Receipts from these purchases show one book was sold for Rp 30,000, much higher than the National Education Ministry's recommended retail price of between Rp 4,000 and Rp 20,000.
Heru said he opted to buy the textbooks at a bookstore and found he could save some Rp 100,000.
Supatmi, 49, a resident of the Jakarta satellite city of Tangerang, said she spent Rp 530,000 ($57) on 25 school textbooks and complementary books for her 15-year-old daughter Annisa, a tenth-grade student at a local senior high school.
Annisa said she bought the books at a bookstore in front of her school after being told to by her teachers. She added the books would only be used in the first semester.
None of the books she bought is on the National Education Ministry's book list.
Under the new e-books policy launched in January, the ministry will buy the copyrights to 287 textbooks for elementary to senior high school levels this year and make them available for free download from the Internet. To date, the ministry has bought the copyrights to 49 books.
The ministry's new regulation specifies anyone can print, copy, distribute and sell the books, as long as the price does not exceed the maximum retail price set by the government.
Fitriani Sunarto, coordinator of the Independent Group for Book Advocacy (KITAB), said the regulation was a failure because none of the 49 school textbooks, available online at http://bse.depdiknas.go.id, was available in the market.
She added the public was still ill-informed about the new book policy. Most teachers and parents are unaware schools should only use textbooks whose copyrights have been bought by the government, while many schools and local education agencies have yet to receive a guideline on the policy from the ministry.
Fitriani said another problem was the fact many schools and students had no access to the Internet, while those who did had difficulties downloading the books.
"Even after a successful download, printing the book will end up being more expensive for students than buying a book in a bookstore or at school," she said.
Instead of wasting Rp 20 billion on the e-books policy, she suggested the government reallocate the funds to the School Operational Aid (BOS) to allow students to obtain textbooks for free.
Setia Dharma Madjid, chairman of the Association of Indonesian Publishers (IKAPI), said publishers were confused about whether they could publish school textbooks whose copyrights were bought by the government.
"On the one hand, the government is purchasing books' copyrights from authors," he said.
"But, on the other hand, they are asking us to submit our books for assessment, which is standard procedure prior to publication."
