Assemblyman Yoon Young-deok: "Textbook Price Reduction Policy by Ministry of Education Harms Students Directly"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] It has been revealed that the Ministry of Education and 17 local city and provincial education offices paid several hundred billion won to publishers who had lowered the prices of elementary and high school approved textbooks due to the Ministry's unfair textbook price adjustment orders.

According to data submitted by the Ministry of Education to Yoon Youngdeok (Democratic Party of Korea, Gwangju Dongnam-gap), a member of the National Assembly's Education Committee, on the 6th, the Ministry and publishers signed a settlement agreement worth 249.5 billion won last July to resolve disputes related to textbook prices.

During the Lee Myung-bak administration, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology introduced a textbook price deregulation system in August 2009.

After the introduction of textbook price deregulation, textbook prices surged, and the Park Geun-hye administration's Ministry of Education revised the 'Regulations on Textbooks' and issued textbook price adjustment orders to publishers in 2014 and 2015.

In 2014, the Ministry ordered publishers to reduce elementary school textbook prices by 34.8% and high school textbook prices by 44.4%.

In 2015, the Ministry issued a textbook price adjustment order to lower elementary school textbook prices by 32.9%.

In response, 27 publishers filed a total of 36 administrative lawsuits: 11 against the Ministry of Education, 4 against Ulsan Office of Education, 3 each against Busan, Incheon, Gyeonggi, Daejeon, and Jeonbuk Offices of Education, and 2 each against Daegu, Chungnam, and Chungbuk Offices of Education, claiming they could not accept the Ministry's price adjustments.

In January last year, the Supreme Court ruled to cancel the Ministry's textbook price adjustment orders. Following the Supreme Court ruling, the Ministry's adjusted textbook prices lost their effect, and only the publishers' desired prices became valid.

Following the Supreme Court ruling, publishers claimed a maximum of 355.5 billion won in bonds against the Ministry, and the Ministry, education offices, and publishers finally agreed to pay 249.5 billion won by the end of March 2020.

Accordingly, local city and provincial education offices, facing poor local education finances, reluctantly allocated 179.7 billion won from last year's supplementary budget and the 2020 main budget.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Education supported frontline city and provincial education offices with 68.1 billion won in special grants.

Specifically, ▲Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education 65.6 billion won (special grant 20.3 billion won, self-budget 45.3 billion won) ▲Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education 40.3 billion won (special grant 13.3 billion won, self-budget 27.0 billion won) ▲Gyeongnam Provincial Office of Education 17.1 billion won (special grant 4.1 billion won, self-budget 13.0 billion won) ▲Busan Metropolitan Office of Education 14.4 billion won (special grant 3.5 billion won, self-budget 10.9 billion won) ▲Incheon Metropolitan Office of Education 13.8 billion won (special grant 3.4 billion won, self-budget 10.4 billion won) ▲Gyeongbuk Provincial Office of Education 12.4 billion won (special grant 3.0 billion won, self-budget 9.4 billion won) ▲Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education 12.2 billion won (special grant 3.1 billion won, self-budget 9.1 billion won) ▲Chungnam Office of Education 11.0 billion won (special grant 2.5 billion won, self-budget 8.5 billion won) were allocated.

Assemblyman Yoon Youngdeok said, “The Ministry of Education, which implemented the wrong policy of forcibly lowering textbook prices, shifted responsibility to city and provincial education offices, increasing their financial burden,” adding, “Due to the Ministry's irresponsible administration, the budget for students has been reduced accordingly, and the students have borne the brunt of the damage.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.