The Office of Basic Education Commision (Obec) will cancel its textbook-lending scheme and continue to subsidise a new set of textbooks for all students at primary and secondary levels.
Obec secretary-general Boonrak Yodpetch said Wednesday Obec has to cancel the lending scheme that was set to begin with the next academic year.
This is because there will be changes to the curriculum in primary and secondary schools over the next one or two years.
As such the current textbooks cannot be reused.
"There will be changes to the content of many subjects in the national curriculum such as mathematics, science and geography in the coming years," he said.
"Our textbooks must be updated to keep pace with new knowledge. Old textbooks will not be reuseable, so we've decided to put the plan of lending textbooks to students on hold."
According to Obec, the subsidy on textbooks now stands at about 200 baht per student at kindergarten level and it can go up to almost 1,300 baht per head at secondary level.
The idea of lending textbooks to students instead of giving away new ones was introduced last year by Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin in an effort to save money.
Mr Teerakiat said Obec spends 5 billion baht a year buying new textbooks for students nationwide, so the agency could save up to 1 billion baht a year by simply replacing damaged ones.
At that time, he suggested schools lend textbooks to students and pass them on to the next class if the content taught in the curriculum remained unchanged.
However, his idea was criticised by many educators who argued that contravened students' constitutional right to a free basic education.
