The budget for the textbook campaign, which provides schoolchildren with free textbooks, will be increased once more in 2023/24. It should increase by 7.4 million to 138 million euros, as the Ministry of Family Affairs announced on Tuesday.
The additional funds are to flow primarily into elementary schools, digital textbooks and the expansion of ethics in the upper grades.
Since the prices for the school book campaign are capped and not valorised, the high inflation has no effect on the prices of the books or media available in this context. The price increases for paper, energy, logistics and personnel cannot be passed on by the textbook publishers. There is therefore a need to talk to the Ministry of Family Affairs once more this year. “For the small publishers, this is an existential threat,” says Maximilian Schulyok, Managing Director of the Austrian Federal Publishing House (ÖBV).
The textbook campaign was implemented in 1972 under the title “free textbook”. In order to contain the rising costs, maximum amounts per capita and type of school were set from 1995. In addition, until 2011 there was a deductible of ten percent. Pupil, parent and teacher representatives had complained that parents increasingly had to pay for school books because of the insufficient funding for the school book campaign.
For 2021, the funds from the Family Burden Equalization Fund (FLAF) were finally increased for the first time in ten years, by 12.6 million euros. For 2022 there was a further plus of six million euros.
