40 million lei worth of textbooks to be bought by Ministry of Education

The Ministry of Education will buy new textbook sets for the 3rd, 5th, and 10th grades, altogether worth 40 million lei, for this school year. Ministry’s Special Textbook Fund director Gheorghe Girnet told Info-Prim Neo that middle school and high school pupils pay a rental tax for textbooks, which varies between 40 and 50 lei, money that go into the Special Textbook Fund and are used only for the editing of textbooks. The textbook that is free for all pupils is the first grade ABC book. The other elementary school textbooks are loaned, but without requesting any tax. For first grade pupils, the Textbook Fund issues up to three books. Additionally, pupils’ parents buy notebooks and additional textbooks recommended by teachers. Pupils of middle school and high school, grades between 5th and 12th, get their textbooks in exchange for a tax, which varies based on the textbooks’ prices and edition year. “The newer the books are, the more expensive they are; the older, the cheaper”, stated Gheorghe Girnet. The textbooks’ period of use ranges between 3 and 5 years. Pupils in middle school, who study in Romanian, pay from 40 to 60 lei; those who study in Russian – 45-70 lei. High school books are more expensive, i.e. 100-150 lei. If a student decides to buy the textbook set from a bookstore, it would cost up to 600 lei, said the Textbook Fund director. The book lease mechanism for middle school and high school has been in effect since 1999.