Book publishers have long been the poor relations when it comes to educational spending. For over a decade publishers have watched with undisguised envy as the amount spent on IT has rocketed whilst the amount spent per pupil on books has fallen.
Now even some in the IT industry acknowledge that the balance between the two areas must be redressed. Two new reports from the Open University and Staffordshire University argue that £100 spent on books increases educational standards by twice as much as the same amount spent on IT.
Normally these reports would attract little attention, except that one of the authors, Steve Hurd of the Open University, has spent three decades specialising in the use of IT in education. Rather than attacking IT as failing, what Mr Hurd and other researchers are saying is that in their drive to raise standards the government needs to reassess the balance between spending on IT and traditional resources like books. What might surprise many parents is the fact that while the government carefully tracks its spending on IT (via Ofsted inspections) it has not done the same for books since 2003.
In a recent report, the book industry lobby group The Publishers' Association highlighted that in primary schools spending on books had fallen from almost £23 per pupil in 1999 to less than £7 in 2003/04. The equivalent amount spent on IT is about £44 per student (hardware and software) although this figure is likely to be higher if it also included the cost of government funding for programmes such as like e-Learning Credits and BBC jam. It is interesting to note that private schools, whose average results are higher than government schools, also spend far more per pupil on books.
Despite several reports questioning the impact of IT spending on improving educational standards, the government still seem to think that Tony Blair’s mantra of ‘education, education, education’, actually translates to ‘IT, IT and more IT’.
Perhaps book publishers’ best bet to securing increased spending in this market will lie with Gordon Brown, who last year committed £27m to buy 9m books for children under the age of four. The amount spent on IT in schools is unlikely ever to fall, but if the government really wants to raise standards then it will also have to spend far more on books. Whoever said that in a digital age, books are dead, has underestimated their value in education.
