The change in the Education Law is not only confronting the regional and central governments over the contents of the Baccalaureate textbooks –Díaz Ayuso has announced that he will appeal the decree of the curriculum for this level of education to the Supreme Court–, but also it will also cost you a significant increase in investment to purchase textbooks next year. Specifically, it will almost double the amount planned for each year, and this time it will approach 50 million euros.
This is so because the Accede Program, for the loan of textbooks, contemplates the renewal, every four years, of the textbooks of several complete courses, which comes to suppose an investment of between 20 and 30 million euros per course .
It begins with the odd courses -3rd and 5th- and the following year, those of the even courses are renewed, both in Primary and in ESO.
But this year, due to the change in the Education Law, it will be necessary to renew all the texts, which will mean some 50 million euros of investment, according to calculations by the Ministry of Education, directed by Enrique Ossorio. The appeal presented by the regional government asks as a precautionary measure to suspend the Baccalaureate decree, and start the course with the books that have been used this course.
But in the rest of the educational stages such as Primary or ESO, which are those included in the Access Program for loan of textbooks, the rule establishes that the books be changed when the law changes, which will force this additional disbursement to the Ministry of Education.
Since the Accede program was launched, tens of thousands of families have joined it. In its first year of application, it was limited to the most vulnerable families, but since 2019 it has been opened to all families, and right now there are 433,000 who benefit from this method.
The books are bought by the schools, which create a bank with them where there are already nearly two million copies. But since they now have to be renewed, the fund will be lost, as they will have to be replaced by the new texts within two courses.
Education has not yet started the process of purchasing textbooks this year; a process that is usually carried out, they explain in the counseling, between July and August. The Accede program works as a loan service: families return the books from the previous year, in good condition, and take the books from the current year in exchange, which represents significant financial savings for all of them.
