The Government stopped buying school books and a controversy arose with the publishers

Seventy-five million pesos are allocated this year, in the budget of the national Ministry of Education, to the purchase of textbooks for students throughout the country. It is the money necessary to acquire, distribute and get it into the hands of children. 14.1 million primary and secondary school titles.

But none of this happened or will happen. The national government decided to cancel this purchase. The argument, as told Clarionis “lack of transparency”, focused -mainly- on the logistics of book delivery and in the discretion with which the operator of that logistics was chosenwhich had been taking 17% of total sales volume.

Now, the novelty is that all the publishers – 16 participated in this process in 2024 – came out to defend themselves, through a statement signed by the two business organizations of the sector: the Argentine Book Chamber (CAL) and the Argentine Chamber of Publications (CAP).

The editors highlight, first of all, the loss that not having textbooks means for students. “The book, as an instrument, is a leveler of opportunities for society. We must not lose that focus,” he told Clarion Ramiro Villalba, deputy secretary and representative of the education sector of the CAL.

He added that they recently met with Secretary Carlos Torrendell, to whom they told that logistics is not their responsibilitybut the documents prepared by the previous government They asked them to hire an operator.

They also told him that the objective of the cameras is to find a solution. “We don’t want to confront. We want to work on the improvements that are needed. Everything can be perfected. Now, definitively leave the kids without booksit is a great shame and it is an investment that the country cannot afford to stop making in education,” said Villalba.

The truth is that nothing of the planned investment for school books was executed. From the Government they told Clarion that this money is going to go to National Literacy Planwhich has not started yet.

The procedure that, decades ago, had been followed for the purchase of school books began when the National State called on publishers to present their titles. These materials then passed through two evaluation instances: one national and one provincial, where the titles that were considered relevant were selected.

Finally, the Nation (through the Ministry of Education, now the Secretariat) made the purchase, according to the enrollment of each province.

Although this had been done for years – with many differences in purchase volume year after year – at the end of 2021 the Fernández government introduced a novelty.

As part of post-pandemic policies, it launched the program “Books to Learn”, which consisted of the delivery of school books, directly, to all primary and secondary school students of state and private management schools with zero fees and single offer. This made the purchase of school books has skyrocketed in the last two years.

Now, what do they say from the current Ministry of Education? What in the price of the book 17% was added in the concepts of “consolidated and distribution”.

By consolidated It is understood as the process by which books, once printed, are taken to a warehouse (where the boxes are assembled by school and palletized by province). Then comes the distributiontowards the 24 jurisdictions.

The Government says that it draws their attention that the price of consolidation and distribution is a fixed percentage of the book value when the titles have different prices depending on the content.

Furthermore, they point out that since the consolidation and distribution items were not separated, there was “discretion in the choice of suppliers for these two services.” without any control over these contracts”.

From the publishers they assure that they They do not participate in logistics, they only dedicate themselves to producing books. But the previous government asked them to include these logistics in the price and told them which operator would take charge.

“They paid us the cost of logistics so that we could later pay the operator. The previous government chose a logistics operator called Envaplast, which has a lot of experience and tradition in this type of operationswho were the ones who received, for the entire logistics operation, 17% of the purchase volume,” he told Clarion an industry source.

“Is it true that the price of the book included logistics? Yes, but because the government asked for it to be that way. Is it true that there was discretion in choosing the logistics operator? Yes, but only halfway, because both the career people in the Ministry and the publishers They trust a lot in the experience of this operator because it is very complicated logistics, since we have to reach each rural school and do it quickly,” the source added.

The Government presents another situation, which they describe as “eye-catching”. They say they discovered “a wide margin to lower the prices of each bookdespite the inflation of 2023.”

“At the beginning of the negotiation in this administration, the price proposed by the publishers was $10,000 + 17% for the consolidated and distribution. Finally, it came to $5000 and 3%. All this was sufficient proof of the vice around the process, so the Ministry of Human Capital decided to suspend that purchasing process. The objective is to rethink the need for make book acquisition transparent and efficient“, they slide.

The publishers explain it differently. “The new government effectively wanted take off the logistics book, which we saw as perfect because logistics complicates things for us editors and adds nothing to us. But when requesting the place to deliver the books, they asked us to do the consolidation and preparation of the offices. And that they would put out to tender the part of the logistics corresponding to transportation.”

“For that consolidation work (without transportation) They offered us 3%. But the transportation was never put out to tender. What we want to be very clear is that logistics is not something that corresponds to us. IF we did it in the past it was because that’s what the document asked for”, they insist.

There are also different points of view regarding book purchasing times. For the Government, when they came to power, the process was very delayed. From the publishers, on the contrary, they affirm that it was advanced and that, to arrive on time, they even negotiated costs in the production chain and, in some cases, resigned profitability. They believe that the delays actually occurred as a result of the change in Government.

Nobody knows yet how this issue will continue. Now, from the Nation they offered the provinces to buy the books and once purchased, they will send them the funds, leaving the distribution in charge of each province. The provinces that opt ​​for this possibility must sign an agreement with the Nation.

Until now no district signed it.

The statement from the editorial chambers focuses on the value of books in schools. They say they are the material more accessible and proven to accompany the learning processes, “because they are written and edited by education experts and guarantee a graded didactic sequence in accordance with current curricular designs.”

“Today we know that not all children learn in the same way, that is why the textbook promotes different ways of knowing through illustrations, photos, charts, maps, graphs, explorations, infographics, or digital activities. All these qualities allow students to learn more and have better content. And the teacher has the valuable and indispensable tool every year,” they add.

“Our books are on the market, in bookstores. We visited schools all over the country. We keep working. But books should not stop being present in schools where they really do not have the possibility of buying them and where children are not lucky enough for their parents to be able to take them to a bookstore. We have been working and investing in this for many years and we are going to continue doing so,” completes Ramiro Villalba, from CAL.