Publishers are facing billions of losses due to reducing the list of textbooks recommended by the Ministry of Education and Science

Russian publishers of school textbooks are faced with serious financial problems. The reason is the decision of the Ministry of Education and Science, which reduced the list of textbooks for schools for the 2014/15 academic year. Compared to the previous year, the list of literature recommended to schools was reduced by 2.5 times - from 3,000 to 1,369 textbooks. Because of this, some publishers specializing in the educational literature threaten losses of billions of rubles, others - hundreds of millions, the newspaper Vedomosti writes.

The decision of the officials affected, in particular, such large publishers as Fedorov, Balass, title and Mnemosin. The companies tried to challenge the change in the list in the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) and through the court, but so far unsuccessfully. The FAS recognized the decision of the Ministry of Education and Science Legal. As for the court decision, it has not yet been issued for any of the claims.

Meanwhile, officials prepared a new test to publishers. According to the new requirements, all school textbooks in Russia from January 1, 2015 will have to have not only a printed, but also electronic version, the head of the Ministry of Education and Science, Dmitry Livanov, said on July 11 at a meeting with the largest publishers of textbooks. This condition will become a prerequisite for inclusion in the federal list of textbooks.

At the same time, the minister noted that this process cannot be regarded as the crowding out of the "traditional", a printed option of manuals: we are talking about expanding the educational capabilities of the school. "Modern education must comply with new conditions from the point of view of technology, content, as well as respond with the needs of children and their interests," RIA Novosti cites the words of the Minister of RIA .

According to the Ministry of Education and Science, the main problem related to the implementation of electronic textbooks is due to the fact that today there are no clear rules and standards for publishers to create, distribute and use such manuals.

The meeting participants were instructed to prepare their proposals and recommendations on the development of electronic textbooks within three weeks and send them to the Department of State Policy in the field of general education of the Ministry of Education and Science.

Recall that last year in Russia there was the possibility of electronic recording children in first grade.

As for textbooks, the country is currently developing a single history textbook , the initiator of the creation of which was the Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In addition, it is planned to create unified textbooks on the Russian language and literature. Such a proposal in May was made by the head of the State Duma Committee Irina Yarovaya. Later it was reported that the Ministry of Education and Science was supported by studying the disappointing results of the exam in Russian, after the summary of which the minimum assessment threshold was reduced from 36 to 24 points.