14 June 2006 Our Experience in Assisting Developing Countries to Develop Their Textbook Industry

14 June 2006

Our Experiencein Assisting Developing Countries to Develop Their Textbook Industry

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A member of Times Publishing Limited

Agenda

• Vital Statistics of Singapore• Book Chain in Singapore• Evolution of Textbook Publishing• International Collaboration

• Brunei Darussalam• China• United States• Malaysia• Caribbean• Pakistan• Vietnam• Thailand & Indonesia

• Moving Forward

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Vital Statistics of Singapore

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Total Population (‘000) 4,240.3

Singapore Residents (‘000) 3,486.9

Population Density (Per Sq Km) 6,066

Land Area (Sq Km) 699

Literacy Rate (%)(among residents aged 15 yrs & over)

94.6

% with Secondary or Higher Qualifications(among residents non-students aged 15 yrs & over)

57.8

Mean Years of Schooling (Yrs)(among resident non-students aged 25 yrs & over)

8.8

Per Capita GDP (US$) 25,810

Source: Singapore Department of Statistics (www.singstat.gov.sg) on 20 May 2005.

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Singapore’s View on Education

• Multi-racial Society• 77% Chinese• 14% Malays• 8% Indians• 1% Others

• People as our only natural resources.• Since self-government (1959), education in

Singapore has always played a dual role of supporting economic growth and promoting social integration.

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Book Chain in Singapore

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SchoolCurriculum

NationalStandard

Assessment/Examination

TextbookPublisher

Education

The Book Chain in Singapore

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Author / Editor

Production

Printer

TextbookPublisher

Publishing


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Trainer

TextbookPublisher

Sales

Bookseller

SchoolAdoption


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Sales

Education

Publishing

TextbookPublisher

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SchoolCurriculum

NationalStandard

Assessment/Examination Education

Trainer

Bookseller

SchoolAdoption

Sales

Author / Editor

Production

Printer

Publishing

TextbookPublisher


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NationalStandard

Author / Editor

Printer

Trainer TextbookPublisher

SchoolCurriculum

Assessment/Examination

ProductionBookseller

SchoolAdoption


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Evolution of Textbook Publishing

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Evolution of Textbook Publishing

1959 - 1980 1981 - 2000 2000 Onwards

• 1965, Singapore achieved Independence.

• 1967, EPB was set up under the MOE to publish textbooks.

• CDIS was set up under the MOE to develop curriculum and co-publish textbooks with publishers.

• Liberalisation of textbook publishing.

The Initial Years The Co-publishing Era Textbook Liberalisation

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The Initial Years

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The Initial Years

• Vernacular Schools• showed strong orientation towards the respective

countries where our forefathers came from

• High Unemployment (Post-war Years)• job opportunities limited in private sector• those in public sector required people reasonably

proficient in the English language

• High Cost of (Imported) Books

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Affordable Textbooks

• Textbooks were expensive as most of them were imported. The values were diverse and may not have served Singapore well.

• Education Publication Bureau (EPB) was set up in 1967 under the MOE to provide• affordable textbooks• common textbooks to promote national cohesion, and to

provide a common message for nation building

• EPB took over the publication of Chinese textbooks and later all Mother-Tongue textbooks.• MOE deliberately brought the price down• students are required to buy textbooks

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Bilingualism

• Introduced bilingualism to tackle the problem of Chinese, Malay, and Tamil education.• English• Mother-Tongue (C, M, T)

• Singapore Government recognised that English Language will be the key international language of communication.• English became the language of instruction and medium of

communication amongst the ethnic races.

• Produced better educated and suitably equipped workforce to meet the manpower needs of an industrialising and modernising economy.

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Features of Education Policies

• A common curriculum for all school subjects in the four language media.

• A common training for all teachers at the Teachers’ Training College.

• Institution of common examinations:• PSLE• Cambridge School Certificate Examination• Cambridge HSC Examination

• kept links to the Cambridge examinations in order to maintain high standards which would be recognised world wide

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Publishing Industry

• Curriculum was prescribed to the schools via syllabuses issued by MOE.

• However, schools still have a free hand in selecting their own textbooks from the many books available in the market.

• Publishers published textbooks that conform to the syllabuses.

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The Co-publishing Era

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The Co-publishing Era

• MOE set up the Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore (CDIS).

• 200–300 teachers were co-opted from schools to become full-time textbook writers.• curriculum development remains the responsibility

of Curriculum Development Division.

• CDIS co-publishes 85% of the titles in the MOE’s Approved Textbook List for use by pupils in schools.

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Benefits to the Publishing Houses

• For subjects where the CDIS had jurisdiction, an agreement with publishers gives the textbooks currency for generally 10 years (unless changes made to syllabuses although not frequent).• “guaranteed” revenue for 10 years.

• CDIS’ active involvement in textbook production and its close working relationship with publishers has ensured the high standard of instructional materials used in schools.

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One of Our Partnership with CDIS

• The PETS Series was used in Singapore by all schools for almost a decade starting from mid-1980s till mid-1990s.

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Privatisation of EPB

• EPB, the state-owned textbook publishing house, was privatised in the early 1980s.

• It merged with Singapore National Printer to form SNP Education.

• The privatisation of EPB allowed it to compete fairly with other commercial publishing houses for contracts with CDIS.

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Textbook Liberalisation

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Liberalisation

• With the standards of commercial publishing houses firmly established after 2 decades of close collaboration with CDIS, the MOE will no longer be involved in writing and producing instructional materials for most subjects in the curriculum.

• However, MOE will continue to develop the syllabuses for all subjects.

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Ensuring High Standards

• MOE maintains a rigorous textbook authorisation process to ensure high quality of the commercially produced instructional materials.

• Only those that are approved by the MOE can be used in schools.

• MOE also controls the price structure closely to ensure prices of textbooks and workbooks remains affordable to parents.

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The Future, Now

• By 2008, 90% of the textbooks and workbooks in schools will be produced by commercial publishers.

• Instead of revising the syllabuses every 10 years during the CDIS era, now the syllabuses are reviewed and changed where necessary every 5-6 years in order to capture and reflect the rapid changes of society and the economy.

• Publishers are being approached to share our experiences in producing high quality and affordable instructional materials.

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International Collaboration

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Modes of Collaboration

1. Co-publishing with local publishers, distributors or Ministries of Education;

• Adaptation, localisation, and customisation of existing contents to suit local needs.

2. Adoption of our existing titles coupled with provision of teacher’s training workshops.

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Adaptation, Localisation, and Customisation• Localisation is about providing content

customised to local syllabus, together with an infusion of modern pedagogy in the textbook packages.

• Localisation is about respecting and highlighting local culture.

• Localisation or adaptation of textbook packages is NOT about simply changing the language of instruction, nor about changing the illustrations in the books.

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Countries where we co-published

we co-published textbooks with 11 countries …

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Case Studies

• Brunei Darussalam• China• United States• Malaysia• Caribbean• Pakistan• Vietnam• Thailand & Indonesia

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Brunei Darussalam

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• Singapore and Brunei have close bilateral relationship since 1960s, hence Panpac Education started its international publishing experience with the Brunei MOE in the early 1980s.

• Panpac Education was invited to co-publish with the Brunei MOE in these subjects: Bahasa Melayu, Science, Mathematics, History, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology.

• Brunei MOE sets the syllabuses, Panpac Education engages authors to write and then publish the book, which will be sold by local Brunei distributors in that market.

• In this instance, Brunei lack publishing capability, hence Panpac Education was invited to publish contents suitable for local needs.

• Since then, we have been publishing for Brunei MOE for the last 20 years.

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China, Liaoning Province

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• Panpac Education started working with the State Education Commission of Liaoning Province, northeast China since early 2001.

• We first introduced our Mathematics and Science textbook packages that were all written in English and used by Singapore schools for their review.

• They were very interested to use our contents but due to their lack of proficiency in the English Language, we suggested to them to have bilingual editions.

• We fully translated the contents in its original form into bilingual editions of Chinese and English Language and pilot them throughout the province.

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United States

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• Panpac Education first entered the US through a local distributor distributing our Mathematics publications, mostly to primary and secondary schools.

• Subsequently, the distributor saw the potential of moving into the Primary Mathematics supplementary materials market with our publications and suggested to have one of our best-selling publications customised to suit the US market.

• We re-packaged the initial series of four books into six books for each primary level and the terms used in the contents were chosen to ensure familiarity to the US students, e.g.• replacing the local Singaporean names such as Fatimah or Siti, to

Jane or Mary• replacing tropical fruit names such as durians and rambutans to

oranges and grapes

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Malaysia

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• In June 2002, former Malaysian PM, Dr Mahatir Mohammed made a sudden announcement that Mathematics and Science would be taught in English from Jan 2003 onwards.

• This meant that all Mathematics and Science textbooks need to be published by end Oct 2002 and distributed to all schools by end Nov 2002 before the 2003 school year begins.

• Panpac Education was short listed to publish Mathematics Year 1 for Malaysia.

• Malaysian MOE developed the syllabus, we took care of the writing to the publishing and distribution of the textbook packages in less than 5 months (by end Nov 2002) to all parts of Malaysia including remote areas of the country and Eastern Malaysia by helicopter drop-offs and speedboat deliveries.

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Caribbean

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• In late 1990s, we partnered one of the textbook distributor in the region to enter into Caribbean, competing with international publishers by offering quality books at affordable price.

• In mid-2004, our partner was successfully awarded the tender to publish a number of core curriculum subjects of the new syllabus.

• Panpac Education became the publishing house to fulfil the publishing of those subject.• writers were engaged to write original contents in accordance with

the syllabus

• This was the first time that full textbook packages consisting of textbooks, workbooks, teacher’s guides, teacher’s editions and multimedia resources were introduced.

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• In the process, locally well known educators in Caribbean were enlisted as reviewers of the publication to make sure that the contents are in sync with local contexts and adhered to the syllabus.

• Illustrations that were familiar to Caribbean students, including skin colours of different local ethnic groups were depicted in the textbooks.

• It was through this process of exchanging information and experiences that our partner realised that printing and fulfilment in Singapore and/or China was cheaper than in Caribbean.

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Pakistan

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• Panpac Education has been working with one of the largest private school education publisher and distributor in Pakistan for more than 25 years, introducing our textbook packages into the large private school market throughout the country.

• In the last few years, we started adapting and customising our existing educational contents in English and Science for this market through understanding of the local culture and religion, e.g. • local educators were enlisted as reviewers of the publications to ensure

adherence to local contexts and syllabus• we took out sensitive topics such as “reproduction” and replaced animals

such as pigs and dogs that are considered inappropriate in Islamic religion and with other animals

• textbook covers and many illustrations were re-drawn to reflect familiarity to students

• Finally, we published and printed the entire textbook packages for our partner, making use of networks throughout the low-cost Asian region.

• Our partner found our production costs to be much more competitive compared to having them done in Pakistan.

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Vietnam

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• Panpac Education formed a strong working relationship with the state-owned publisher in Vietnam, who found our experiences in customisation and adaptation of our contents to local conditions very appealing.

• We provided expertise in editorial and pre-press processes as well as provided consultation to the writing of their English Language textbooks.

• When the textbooks were ready to be piloted all over the country, we provided the expertise in teacher’s training, helping them to develop teacher training materials for use in teacher training workshops throughout the country.

• We believe that this partnership flourish because we are willing to impart knowledge to our partners.

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Indonesia & Thailand

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• Singapore has close bilateral ties with Thailand and Indonesia hence it was only natural for Panpac Education to have long working relationships with local distributors in these two countries.

• Many of the schools in Thailand and Indonesia look up to the Singapore education system centred on using English Language as the key language of instruction and would like to emulate it in their schools … the fastest way to improve their education system is to use Singapore-published textbooks in their teaching and learning … hence our English Language, Mathematics & Science textbooks are widely distributed in these two countries.

• In Indonesia, many of the schools adopted the Chinese Language textbooks used in Singapore as part of their core curriculum since Indonesia has a significant Chinese population akin to retaining the learning of Chinese Language amongst their children and they could not find good Chinese Language materials suitable to their needs; publications from China and Taiwan were not customised to local needs in terms of cultural affinity, style of presentation and level of difficulty … therefore Singapore Chinese Textbooks, published only by Panpac Education, was the preferred choice since we have gone through years of defining the Chinese curriculum suitable for learners of Chinese as a Second Language.

• We also worked with our partners to conduct teacher’s training workshops as part of our commitment to transfer teaching and learning skills into the two countries.

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Moving Forward

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Moving Forward

• As we accumulate more international publishing experiences through partnerships with many government bodies, local publishers, and distributors, we were invited by many other partners from developing countries to help them develop their textbook industry, for example:

• Iraq under the auspices of UNESCO as part of their initiative to rebuild Iraq’s education system.

• Egypt, as they will be undergoing their new syllabus cycle and would like to join hands with experienced foreign education publishers to create new textbooks for their schools.

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Moving Forward

• Our partners like our flexible and modular partnership models, especially our ability to be a one-stop education services provider and our expertise in providing high quality education contents into the partnerships.

• Panpac Education firmly believes that to make our partnerships meaningful and long-lasting, we not only need to provide high quality one-stop publishing, printing and fulfilment services, we must be committed to the transfer of knowledge.

Documents

14 June 2006 Our Experience in Assisting Developing Countries to Develop Their Textbook Industry