HY RU EN
Asset 3

Loading

End of content No more pages to load

Your search did not match any articles

Marine Madatyan

Textbook Procurement in Armenia: School Principals Play with Millions of Drams

The process of government procurements for school textbooks has become complicated affair. Unlike other items paid for with taxpayers’ money from the budget, tenders for supplying textbooks are won not just by one company, but by two. This is the procedure established by Minister of Education Armen Ashotyan. As to whether the books ever get to the school is a matter for the principals, according to the ministry. The minister has turned school principals into the main player in the process.

One of the publishing houses in Armenia, who hasn’t been able to participate in one of the ministry’s tenders due to paperwork problems, told Hetq that in actuality school principals don’t play a major role in choosing what textbooks are used. The publisher claims that principals aren’t even aware that two textbooks exist for teaching a subject. They are told which one to select. When Hetq asked the publisher who exactly instructs principals which textbook to chose, the answer was, “We’ve wanted to find out for years.”

In 2014, textbooks for elementary school and four textbooks for senior school were published by the government. The elementary school textbooks were allocated to pupils for one year while the four texts for senior pupils were paid for by them. There are two versions for each elementary textbook. For example the ABC book has been published by Edit Print and Manmar (formerly Macmillan).

Narineh Hovhannisyan, head of the Ministry Of Education’s Department of Public Education, says that her office works with provincial school principals for a long time before they decide how many textbooks for a given subject to purchase. As a result, most schools select one publisher. In 2014, a majority preferred Manmar for their Mayreni Armenian language primer (18,321 copies) as opposed to the same published by Edit Print (8,391).

The same difference in quantity appears in the case of other textbooks. “We give our textbook list and ask how many they want. If two ABC books won the state tender, we show both. We gather everyone and draft the tender. The purchase is then made,” explains Narineh Hovhannisyan.

In 2014, the ministry planned to spend 969 million AMD for publishing textbooks. The ministry first receives the procurement requests from the schools and then presents an overall request to the government. The government, in turn, enters into contracts with the publishers.

In 2014, the government signed textbook contracts with the following publishers:

Zangak-97 – 325.6 million AMD, Manmar – 270.8 million, Tigran Metz – 151.3 million, Edit Print – 58.6 million, Astghik Gratoun – 52.4 million, Armenia Chess Academy – 46.1 million, Arevik – 39.2 million, Spika Ltd. – 24.9 million.

Sometimes, the winning publishers have supplied textbooks at a greater price than their competitors. This hasn’t been an issue for the ministry which operates on the principle that ‘the schools decide’. As an example, both Manmar and Edit Print supply the fourth grade Russian textbook; the first for 2,200 dram per copy and the second for 1,500. Last year, the ministry supplied 24,827 copies of the Manmar edition as opposed to 9,597 of the Edit Print version.

In 2009, Minister of Education Ashotyan decreed that the life of a textbook was a minimum of three years. This would do away with certain textbooks being republished every year. However, for three consecutive years the ministry has published first grade textbooks a fine arts and technology.

Narineh Hovhannisyan explained that pupils draw and write in the books and that’s why they are republished every year.

To republish just these two texts the ministry spent some 74 million AMD in 2014 in single source contracts.

These contracts not only violate the minister’s stated procedure but Armenia’s Law on Procurements. The above noted drawing books won in a price tender, but a higher price was quoted when they were republished.

While the ministry paid Tigran Metz publishers 1,160 dram for every copy of the first grade Technology textbook in 2013, it paid 1,296 per copy the following year; an increase of 136 dram.

41,208 copies of the book were purchased at a cost of 5.6 million AMD more than the year before.

 

 

Write a comment

If you found a typo you can notify us by selecting the text area and pressing CTRL+Enter