Production and Utilization of Core-Textbooks in Primary School System: Impact of Authors and Publishers

Abstract

Textbooks often determine what learners learn and what they should be taught. Teachers base their lessons on and choose lesson content from what textbooks contain. They are usually the only reading material students have access to and examinations are often, to a considerable extent, based on the ability to reproduce what is found in textbooks. Research has shown that textbooks can improve primary school children educational achievement. There are different key players (authors, booksellers, publishers, printers, libraries and readers) in the book industry who contributes to the development of textbooks. These stakeholders have specific roles to play and cannot operate in isolation. The study, therefore investigated the influence of authorship and publishers on core textbook production and utilisation in Oyo State primary schools. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. Pupils’ Textbook Assessment Scale (r=0.77) and Key Informant Interview (KII) were used for data collection. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The authors were highly qualified as majority (69.0%) of them were Ph.D. holders who wrote in their areas of specialisations. This reflected in the high quality textbook produced. The KII revealed that all the publishers indicated their authors’ qualifications and experience as important criteria for selection. More than half of the authors (78.6%) were male. Authors and publishers influenced utilisation of textbooks in Oyo State. Therefore, government should ensure evaluation in respect to authorship and quality of textbooks by experts before they are adopted for schools in Oyo State. The government should also reduce taxes on raw materials that publishers use in textbook production.

Keywords: Authorship; Core textbooks; Primary school system; Pupils