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Breaking stories
Secondary schools reluctant to introduce book rental schemes
By Niall Murray
Changes to the curriculum and increasing availability of ebooks are making secondary schools reluctant to start book rental schemes.
Every school is given a book grant based on pupil numbers each year, and Education Minister Ruairi Quinn is pushing schools to use the funds to run rental schemes that can significantly reduce the costs of textbooks for families.However, a recent report from his school inspectors suggested that, while three quarters of primary schools have such schemes in place, as few as one third of schools in the religious-run secondary sector have a book rental system.
Many schools use the Department of Education grant to help needier families meet the costs of textbooks or to buy new library books.
The minister had also asked that schools be given additional discounts for buying titles for rental schemes.
However, even with the cuts of 12.5% to 20% that publishers say schools are offered for buying in bulk, a number of factors are contributing to the slow roll-out of schemes.
The Joint Managerial Body (JMB), which represents boards of the 390 second-level schools, said one difficulty is that schools need someone to run the schemes properly.
“Posts of responsibility in schools are being severely reduced and vacancies for other roles still have to be filled until the situation around allowances is sorted out,” said JMB general secretary Ferdia Kelly.
However, he said schools have also contacted the organisation asking about the wisdom of investing tens of thousands on books when many changes are coming down the track.
“They might have spent €80,000 on books to keep a rental scheme ticking over. But there’s a new junior cycle being developed, so schools are asking why invest large sums now when they might be no use in a few years.
“More and more publishers are making books available electronically, so others are wondering why they would start up a book rental scheme now.”
The replacement exam system for the Junior Certificate will kick in for students starting second level in two years’ time. English will be the first subject to be assessed differently, using a combination of the final exam in 2017 with continuous assessments, and other subjects will change over on a staggered basis in the following years.
Mr Kelly said schools, publishers, the Department of Education, and other groups needed to work toget-her to consider the issues rather than encouraging schools to spend huge sums of money on books that might be of little use within a few years.
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