Help! Looking for information on schoolbooks in Portugal!

Hi, Nicoline!

I'll try to answer some of your questions... I'm a secondary school teacher here in Portugal. Yes, it is true that the publishing industry is very powerful. There have been some timid attemps to control them lately, but not enough.

Books and education system
1.    How many schoolbooks per year does a pupil need regarding textbooks and workbooks? (primary and secondary school)

That depends on the school year. 3 for the first 4 years of school. I'd say about 8 for grades 5 and 6. Maybe 10 or 11 for grades 7, 8 and 9. Grades 10 to 12 should also need around 10 or 11 books, but some subjects require 2 volumes...

2.    What is the average price of new textbooks? And of workbooks?

I'd say around €15/€20 per book. According to a portuguese website, during the "1º ciclo" (Grades 1 to 4) that amounts to €45 (only 3 books are needed) and €250 for grade 10 students.

3.    Who pays eventually for the books, parents/students or the school/government?

In most cases, the parents do. Some lower-income children are given books by the government. Some cities offer books to their students to try to attract more families.


Decision making
1.    Who decides what books will be used? (teacher/head of department/school management/ government) Is it the same for primary and secondary education?

Each school decides which books they will use. The teachers are responsible for analyzing and choosing the books.

2.    How often do schools/teachers change methods, with order words: how many years are schoolbooks being (re)used? Who decides on the change (teachers or governmental bodies) and what are the reasons for change?

Since 2007, I think, each book chosen must be used for at least 6 years to facilitate reuse, for example, by brothers. This is a recent law passed by the government. Sometimes new methods are introduced that implies new books, this is all decided at government level.


Needs
1.    Do you know how the distribution of schoolbooks is managed at the moment and is there a need for change in this way? I mean by this: do pupils buy the books themselves by a bookstore and pay for the books, or do they get the books from school, or is there a distributor that delivers the books to the pupils, or…?

Most students buy the books at a bookstore (or online). The students that are given books by the government receive them at school (usually several weeks after school begins...).

2.    Do you think that there is a need for cheaper schoolbooks, or for a rental system of schoolbooks in some kind?

Definitely, yes. All books are paperback and are usually a mix of textbook and workbook which makes them harder to reuse (the answers will be all filled out, for example) and they often have a hard time reaching the end of the school year intact.


ICT in schools
1.    Are schools using digital learning methods? What is the price level of these methods compared to the hard copy version?

There is a state-sponsered campaign for using ICT in schools, including cheap laptops and interactive boards in schoolrooms. However the hard copy version is always required (as far as I know...) A lot of the new books come with a pdf version or interactive version on a cd that is included with the hard copy version and never sold separately (again, as far as I know...)

2.    Are schools using (specialised) pupil administration software systems (for example to administer absence of pupils)?  If yes, which one? If not, is there a need for it?

Some schools do, although many of the software systems available are not very user-friendly. This is an area that I expect to evolve greatly in the very near future.

Dear 'Spot',

Thank you so much for the very useful information!
What I'm still wondering about: is there no kind of distributer that orders and delivers the books to students? So students just order all their books in a bookstore (or online) and have them send to them or pick them up in the store?
Seems strange to me (or rather old-fashioned;)), because if schools would order them in a bulk (at a distrubuter for example and that distributer orders all the books from different publishers), schools and thus students would get much more discount... Maybe schools think that is to much hassle for them to organise?

Anywho, thanks again for all your help!
Very kind greetings,
Nicoline
(E: nicoline.nagtzaam@ormit.nl)

Yes, well, logic and the best interest of the students aren't top priority over here... I've worked in West Africa and in England, and I've concluded that Portugal is closer to West Africa than England in terms of government, corruption and conceding to the 'powers that be'...

In this case, I'd say hundreds of smalltown bookstores would close if they didn't sell schoolbooks and I'm guessing the publishers also make more money this way. There have been some attempts to promote the loaning or reuse of schoolbooks but not to any significant success, yet.

Here is an example of a website where books can be ordered: http://www.wook.pt/Schoolbooks/schoolbooks/  I had a quick look at grade 10 books and I saw that a Maths schoolbook can cost €42!