Despite all difficulties and price increases, textbooks continue to arrive at schools free of charge and on time, said the Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior.
Bence Rétvári announced at a press conference held in the warehouse of KELLO Könyvtárellátó Nonprofit Kft. that the textbooks will go to schools again on Monday.
He reminded: years ago, the government decided to make textbook subsidies part of family subsidies, which made access to textbooks free of charge for all children participating in public education.
This takes tens of thousands of forints per child off the shoulders of families, the state secretary added.
Bence Rétvári announced that a total of 13 million textbooks are waiting to be delivered to schools in KELLO's two warehouses. He added that in this year's elections, the program of the left included the abolition of the state textbook system, the re-privatization of the textbook market, which would have restored the system before 2010, and private publishers would have appeared again in textbook publishing, and families would have had to pay the rising textbook prices.
Zsolt Tőczik, the managing director of KELLO, said that the supply of textbooks will be fine this year as well, that the textbooks ordered by the schools will be available in the required quantity and quality by the beginning of the school year.
He added that the production of textbooks was a much more difficult task this year due to logistical problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the energy crisis and inflation caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The raw materials have become very expensive, and paper also costs twice as much as a year ago, but the problems have been dealt with, added the executive.
Source: vasarnap.hu/MTI
Featured image: KDNP
