The printing industry in Egypt is concerned about the Ministry of Education’s plan to digitize text books while gradually dispensing with the paper books, a move that could lead to great loss of revenues and jobs for printers across Egypt.
Ahmed Gaber, head of the Printing and Packaging Chamber at the Federation of Egyptian Industries(FEI) said, “The ministry clearly has a plan to gradually dispense with the paper books, which will negatively affect the printing industry and leads to loss of jobs.”
The Ministry of Education annually issues a tender to print textbooks before the beginning of the academic year. A large number of printers are participating in tender every year. However, this year the number of participants dropped sharply, since the terms and conditions set forth in the tender were more demanding than previous years.
After the evaluation process 73 printers were chosen to print the books. Last year the number stood at 120. The budget for printing also decreased to 1.3 billion Egyptian Pounds.
Gaber says, “The number of paper books required by the Ministry is on decline and the downward trend will continue. The share decline of paper text books will make a huge dent in the revenues of printers who have already invested billions of Pounds in state-of-the-art equipment. I am afraid this strategy will ultimately lead to closure of many print houses in Egypt. “
Nadim Elias, Chairman of the Export Council for Printing and Packaging, however believes that the digitization of text books should not affect adversely the printing industry. He says the digitization of text books started in Europe for few years ago but there still a huge quantity of text book is printed annually in Europe.
He added, “It is difficult to rely on the digital book alone in the educational process, and the paper book must be also available. If Ministry of Education relies only on E books, education process, as well as print service providers suffer huge losses.”
