School textbooks to be available online for free

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Attention parents! Textbooks will be free online for your children starting August this year. The government is buying the copyrights for standardized textbooks used from grade school to senior high levels and will post them online for easy and convenient downloading.

The "book reform program" eliminates the monopoly of publishers -- including state-owned Balai Pustaka -- over production and distribution of textbooks said Sugiyanto, head of the books at the Education Ministry.

Based on ministry calculations, he said, the per student cost of textbooks was at least Rp 200,000 (US$21.6) each semester, meaning books were simply not affordable for many students.

Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) last year found many parents had a hard time buying expensive textbooks, only to find they weren't reusable.

Confirming this, Sugiyanto said publishers often revised books every semester, forcing students to buy the new versions because those from the previous school year had become "out-of-date".

"This practice that only benefits publishers is very common in this country," he told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

He said that, absent the need for revisions, books would be usable for a give-year period under the program.

Along with this program, the government will also make sure teachers don't try to sell textbooks directly to students at the beginning of the school year, a practice prohibited by a 2005 ministry regulation.

Sugiyanto said the program represented the implementation a new Education Ministry regulation on education textbooks.

"The policy stipulates that there will be no monopoly on book writing, reproducing, publishing and distribution by the government or other parties."

According to him, the ministry has already purchased the rights to reproduce 37 books and planned to buy copyrights for 250 others this year. Copyright deals range between Rp 100 million and Rp 175 million per book.

"The materials from the selected books will be uploaded onto websites and the public can download them for personal use."

Sugiyanto said publishers would be allowed to reprint and sell books, but at prices controlled by the government.

"We're still calculating the highest prices allowed for publishers to sell the books."

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said recently the government hoped the program would see the price of textbooks drop by at least a third.

According to Sugiyanto, the President is scheduled to launch the program between Aug. 1 and 9 this year.

Then, with an Internet connection, books can downloaded from www.sibi.or.id or a separate online system of the ministry.

The government has allocated around Rp 700 billion this year to help students purchase textbooks through the School Operational Aid (BOS) program. Ministry general-secretary Dodi Nandika previously said schools in the future could use the funds to help students pay to print downloaded materials. (dia)