Schools await promised 600 million ISK for teaching materials

Funding for teaching materials in Icelandic schools has fallen sharply in real terms, while a promised 600 million ISK injection has yet to be allocated, mbl.is reports. The Centre for Education and School Services says shortages of printed materials at the start of the school year are now being resolved.

Íris E. Gísladóttir, chair of the Educational Materials Development Fund, said the former National Centre for Educational Materials had about 23,000 ISK available per student when funding was at a healthy level. That figure is now about 7,000 ISK per student.

“That is for all teaching materials for all the subjects students take,” Íris said.

She said funding decisions depended on the minister’s discretion and that answers sometimes arrived by text message. The Centre for Education and School Services, which is responsible for publishing teaching materials, had not received enough funding to print everything needed.

As a result, the centre has made some materials available in PDF format where copyright permissions allow. Íris said this was not the result of a formal digital strategy, but an effort to save money while producing the materials that are missing.

The funding for the sector has not increased, she said. Because the nominal amount has remained unchanged, its value has fallen substantially in real terms. The education minister announced during the summer that an additional 600 million ISK would be allocated to the sector.

“Those millions are nowhere to be found,” Íris said.

Katrín Friðriksdóttir, director of the Centre for Education and School Services’ teaching materials division, said she believed the 600 million ISK injection was still planned and expected the minister to announce it soon.

She said the centre had received about 50 million ISK in additional funding for printing. That money arrived in the spring and had not caused a problem, she said.

Katrín attributed the shortage of printed materials at the start of the school year to the bankruptcy of Ísafold printing house in the spring. Several titles were being printed when the company entered bankruptcy proceedings, and the centre initially received no information about their status, including whether some had already been completed abroad and were awaiting shipment to Iceland.

Printing could not resume until late in the summer. The final titles are now arriving, and all are expected to be available by the end of September. The materials most missed by students are workbooks they use in class, Katrín said.