Publishing’s contribution to school education

Research by Frontier Economics into the value of textbooks has revealed that school textbooks only need to save teachers 4 and a half minutes a day in order to pay for themselves, suggesting cutting textbooks use is a false economy.

With the UK school system facing real-term budget cuts of 8% by 2019/20, according to the National Audit Office, textbooks are a victim of classroom austerity and unit sales are declining. Instead, teachers are forced to rely on free online resources of varying quality, with textbooks increasingly seen as an unaffordable luxury. In a 2017 NUT/ATL survey, 73% of teachers said their budget for books and equipment had been cut, and fewer than one in ten teachers now say they use textbooks in more than half their lessons.

Frontier Economics, in a report commissioned by the Publishers Association, looked at the role of educational materials in teacher time savings. The average teacher spends nine hours per week preparing their classes, with the total value of this time equating to £4.8bn a year. The estimated total UK spend on printed educational resources is £196m. Using this information, the report authors conducted a break-even analysis to uncover that textbooks need only save teachers four and a half minutes each day to pay for themselves.

There is some existing evidence suggesting that textbooks do save teacher time—with some limited survey data suggesting a saving of 18 minutes a day or more. Against this figure, the report authors note that “textbooks pay for themselves four times over”. It is also noted that their calculation is based on data for full-time teachers only. As textbooks are likely to save time for part-time teachers too, four and a half minutes is a conservative calculation.

When the average teacher spends nine hours per week preparing their classes, the time that they can save is potentially hugely valuable, freeing teachers up to do other things. It could reduce teacher workload, be used to give students more individual attention, used for lesson delivery planning or a number of other things which could influence pupil attainment.