D
Dr Moriarty
Guest
Interesting cross-section of views in yesterday's Irish Times Education supplement (piece by [broken link removed])
At the risk of descending into a generalised rant, what do people here think of this particular cash cow, and in particular of the view expressed by Hubert Mahony, director of the Irish Educational Publishers Association, that "the idea that online retailers can pressure publishers to drop prices is not valid - there is enough competition between publishers to keep prices down as it is." (about 3/4-way down the page)
My own view (as an educator and parent of five school-going kids) is that the Irish school book market — completely unregulated, and worth more than €50 million a year to a handful of publishers — is one of the stinkiest, smug and cynical cartels to have emerged in the general rip-off culture of recent years. I'll drop well over a grand in the next few weeks to provide my kids with their back-to-school requirements — yes, requirements. I don't have any choice about it, short of taking them out of school — and, like Tim Curley, I have an attic-full of used-once books that are completely un-resellable/un-reusable — even though my kids are only a year or two apart, and attending the same two schools (and that's quite apart from the cratefuls of crappy, overpriced "workbooks" that are discussed in the article — typically around €5~€7 for a soft-cover 32-page booklet...:mad ).
All because the teachers and the publishers (I'd swear there has to be some sort of "kickbacks" system at work here!) contrive to have "new"/"revised" editions released every year or two — almost identical in content, just with a different glossy cover and an updated copyright date...
It's not just the economic side of the thing that gets me — I've looked carefully through some of the textbooks for subjects in which I feel I have a bit of expertise, and I'm frequently appalled by the shoddy quality of many of them, from the point of view of educational content, pedagogical principles and even basic typographical accuracy, in the case of foreign language materials especially. As far as I can see, the three main factors driving this constant redesigning of classroom materials are
(a) the challenge of getting/retaining the attention of the so-called "soundbite generation" (neting lngr thn a txt mssg & u r loike soooooo boring...)
(b) increasingly lazy, cynical and self-serving teachers — not all, I hasten to add, but a significant minority of them, and
(c) that old reliable, loadsamoney for the publishers and retailers — and the cute hoors of teachers-turned-"authors" who keep churning the stuff out.
Is it just me? Should I go to the back of the class? Keep the brats at home? Shut up and pay up?
At the risk of descending into a generalised rant, what do people here think of this particular cash cow, and in particular of the view expressed by Hubert Mahony, director of the Irish Educational Publishers Association, that "the idea that online retailers can pressure publishers to drop prices is not valid - there is enough competition between publishers to keep prices down as it is." (about 3/4-way down the page)
My own view (as an educator and parent of five school-going kids) is that the Irish school book market — completely unregulated, and worth more than €50 million a year to a handful of publishers — is one of the stinkiest, smug and cynical cartels to have emerged in the general rip-off culture of recent years. I'll drop well over a grand in the next few weeks to provide my kids with their back-to-school requirements — yes, requirements. I don't have any choice about it, short of taking them out of school — and, like Tim Curley, I have an attic-full of used-once books that are completely un-resellable/un-reusable — even though my kids are only a year or two apart, and attending the same two schools (and that's quite apart from the cratefuls of crappy, overpriced "workbooks" that are discussed in the article — typically around €5~€7 for a soft-cover 32-page booklet...:mad ).
All because the teachers and the publishers (I'd swear there has to be some sort of "kickbacks" system at work here!) contrive to have "new"/"revised" editions released every year or two — almost identical in content, just with a different glossy cover and an updated copyright date...
It's not just the economic side of the thing that gets me — I've looked carefully through some of the textbooks for subjects in which I feel I have a bit of expertise, and I'm frequently appalled by the shoddy quality of many of them, from the point of view of educational content, pedagogical principles and even basic typographical accuracy, in the case of foreign language materials especially. As far as I can see, the three main factors driving this constant redesigning of classroom materials are
(a) the challenge of getting/retaining the attention of the so-called "soundbite generation" (neting lngr thn a txt mssg & u r loike soooooo boring...)
(b) increasingly lazy, cynical and self-serving teachers — not all, I hasten to add, but a significant minority of them, and
(c) that old reliable, loadsamoney for the publishers and retailers — and the cute hoors of teachers-turned-"authors" who keep churning the stuff out.
Is it just me? Should I go to the back of the class? Keep the brats at home? Shut up and pay up?
