Reintroducing school textbook rental fees is planning

Uzbekistan is considering reintroducing rental fees for school textbooks, as proposed in the 2025-2027 draft budget.

The draft outlines the aim of enhancing parental involvement in providing textbooks to schools. Starting from the 2025-2026 academic year, the proposal suggests reinstating rental fees for textbooks and exercise books for students in grades 2 through 11.

In 2024, the average cost of a textbook and exercise books per student was 450,000-500,000 sums, including 100,000-150,000 sums for exercise books. The proposal suggests a fee of 80,000 sums per set of textbooks, which would cover approximately 16-18% of the overall cost.

The projected revenue of 376.6 billion sums from these fees would partially cover the annual cost of exercise books for students.

"The state’s funding of textbook printing reduces parental responsibility and leads to the neglect of educational materials," the draft budget states.

This system is intended to alleviate pressure on the state budget, increase parental engagement, and encourage students to take greater care of educational resources, which officials believe will ultimately benefit the learning process.

In 2022, the one-time rental fee for a textbook set sharply increased from 68,500-119,800 sums, depending on grade level, a 2.1-fold rise from the previous year’s fee of 2,740 sums. The Ministry of Public Education attributed this increase to the global rise in paper prices and transportation costs, which drove up the cost of printing textbooks. The price of paper alone saw a 60-70% increase in 2022, which significantly impacted textbook production costs in Uzbekistan.

On September 6, 2022, Deputy Minister of Public Education Temur Komilov announced that textbooks would be provided free of charge to students in state-run schools only for that academic year.