Taiwan Education Industry accused that the principle of "sample book verification and payment" for elementary and middle school textbooks was finalized as early as May this year. However, at the end of last month, there was a "policy U-turn" and it was announced that the calculation mechanism would be adjusted and renamed "sample book without payment", which increased administrative costs for many schools that had closed the case, and also hit schools that followed the rules. Therefore, the nine major teachers' unions jointly issued a statement, strongly protesting against the State Education Bureau's repeated policies and changes at night, demanding that the central government thoroughly review its responsibilities for dereliction of duty, and should not pass on the cost of arbitrary and rigid decision-making to the grassroots. It also discussed simplifying remedial measures and effectively implemented administrative reductions.
Taiwan Education Industry pointed out that in order to ensure the safe supply of teachers and students' books and improve procurement efficiency, the Ministry of Education has promoted a joint supply and procurement system for national primary and secondary school textbooks. Over the years, it has formed a stable and deeply rooted school daily procurement and verification rhythm. According to the contract specifications, each school must complete acceptance and payment "within 60 days after the start of each semester." Therefore, since the start of school at the end of August every year, the administrative teams of all primary and secondary schools in Taiwan have been working hard and doing their best to settle the payments in accordance with the regulations before the deadline in late October.
Taiwan Education Industry explained that the National Education Administration only made it clear on May 22 this year that "the sample books provided by the publisher should be included in the school's order amount and the payment is verified." The county and city governments subsequently sent letters to the schools under their jurisdiction to cooperate. However, on October 30, when the performance period expired this year, an official document was issued, completely overturning the "sample book verification and payment" principle that had been finalized in the briefing meeting on May 22, pushing all schools in Taiwan that had already concluded the case into an abyss of chaos.
Taiwan Education Industry mentioned that as early as October, each school had requested manufacturers to issue invoices and complete acceptance settlements in accordance with regulations, but the State Education Bureau suddenly reversed the order, forcing school sponsors to chase various publishers to re-reconcile the accounts, handle invoice invalidation, or make corrections across months. Faced with complex accounting write-off and tax procedures, front-line staff are forced to work "secondary invalid overtime." Moreover, the acceptance and settlement list originally produced by the school was completely useless. It was necessary to log in to the platform again to download the report, calculate the latest data after increases and decreases one by one, and re-run the cumbersome internal document approval procedures.
Kuo Yan-cheng, chairman of Taiwan Education Industry, believes that the National Education Administration should publicly apologize and discuss simplified remedial measures. Schools have to re-run procedures and correct accounts, which consumes a lot of intangible administrative costs and cumbersome procedures. The central government should take the initiative to provide unified and simple case closing guidelines to help schools simplify related operations. In addition, administrative reduction should also be effectively implemented to prevent deadline raids and ineffective administration. If the central government formulates or adjusts any procurement regulations in the future, it should thoroughly understand the process and think clearly before proceeding. The textbook accounting and reporting tasks should be comprehensively simplified, leaving time for students and teaching.
