Measures implemented to facilitate textbook recycling
- Starting from the 2010/11 school year, the “five-year no revision rule” has replaced the “three-year no revision rule”;
- EDB encourages publishers to make necessary amendments to textbooks in the form of "reprint with minor amendments". In addition, publishers should ensure to provide supplementary information and amendments in the form of “corrigenda” or “appendices” free of charge to students using the old edition textbooks via schools; and
- Since April 2012, an additional requirement that the design should facilitate the reuse of textbooks has been included in the “Guiding Principles for Quality Textbooks”. To meet this requirement, for example, textbooks should appropriately include the sources of figures and statistics, etc so as to prevent the use of outdated information by students. Pages designed to be torn off or for one-off use (e.g. stickers that can be used only once) should be avoided as far as possible so as to facilitate the reuse of textbooks.