Educational Publishing in Global Perspective: Capacity Building and Trends

The chain of stakeholders associated with educational books is long and impressive. By contrast, our information about the educational book publishing industry has been fragmented at best. To consolidate and share this information, a seminar on "Understanding the Educational Book Industry" was organized by the World Bank in Washington, D.C., September 9-10, 1997. This report reflects the deliberations that emerged from that seminar. The seminar focused on four themes: policies for the provision of educational materials; the publishing industry growth in developing countries; thorny issues such as procurement, protection, and copyright; and longer-term solutions. Over the last three years the World Bank has lent approximately US$550 million in one form or another for textbook components within education projects. With textbooks continuing to be such a rarity in developing countries, we need to pause and ask the questions: Are current processes effective? Do we know enough about the educational book industry to claim that we have helped to promote literate societies? This report attempts to answer these and other questions toward the ultimate goal of educating society.