Rental fees for school textbooks may be reintroduced

The Budget for 2025 was announced by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. This was reported by Oyina.uz publication.

According to the message, this newsletter contains the main directions planned to be carried out by the government in 2025-2027 for socio-economic development. One of these directions is the field of education and science.

According to the budget report, it is planned to allocate 15.8 trillion soums from the state budget for the financing of MTTs in 2025, or 15 percent more than the expected implementation in 2024.

It is forecasted that the general expenses of secondary education will amount to 54 trillion soums or 22.9% increase compared to the expected implementation in 2024 and will make up 15.7% of the total expenses of the State budget.

It is expected that 14.5 trillion soums or 9.1% more funds will be allocated to the expenses of secondary and higher education. According to the plan, textbooks in general secondary educational institutions will be completely updated.

Also, in order to increase the participation of parents in the provision of textbooks, the newsletter proposed to re-establish the system of collection of rent for a set of textbooks and exercise books in grades 2-11 from the 2025-2026 school year.

For information, the average price of a set of textbooks and exercise books for one child in 2024 was 450-500 thousand soums (of which exercise books are 100-150 thousand soums). In the given proposals, it is said that the payment of parents should be restored in the amount of 80 thousand soums per set (16-18 percent of the price of one set).

Funds received in this process will be directed to cover a part of the costs of providing students with exercise books.

"The printing of textbooks and exercise books at the expense of the State budget causes a decrease in the responsibility of parents and neglect of textbooks," the Budget document states.