The new textbooks under Samacheer Kalvi' now have teachers making corrections on printed paper. Sentences are plagued by issues of poor sentence construction, incorrect tense, spelling and factual errors. Experts say this may have occurred since the work was not given to the right people and because the books were first written in Tamil and then translated into English.
A Karunanandan, former head of the history department in Vivekananda College, who reviewed the draft syllabus for social studies, said, "The textbooks were both written and reviewed in haste. This lead to a lot of mistakes. Mistakes also arise when the job is not given to the appropriate group. After the books were written, subject experts should have checked for factual errors while people who had a good command over the language ought to have checked the grammar and phrasing.
Full report here TImes of India
Showing posts with label textbook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label textbook. Show all posts
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Online publisher markets free textbooks
College textbook publisher Flat World Knowledge raised $8 million in venture capital to broaden its business of selling printed versions of materials that it makes available online for free, says a Reuters report.
The Nyack, New York, US-based company was launched last year by textbook publishing executives Jeff Shelstad and Eric Frank.
Flat World offers students online books for free and the option of paying for a printed copy, which typically costs less than a comparable textbook from a college store. The textbook Principles of Microeconomics, for example, costs $30 for a black-and-white copy and $60 for one in colour.
"The idea here is the cost of textbooks has gone up dramatically over the last 10 years," says Hooks Johnston, general partner at venture firm Valhalla Partners, the largest investor in the startup. Other VC investors include Greenhill SAVP and High Peaks Venture Partners.
"For a community college student, 40 percent of the cost of attending school is the textbook cost," Johnston adds.
The impact of escalating textbook prices has been documented by regulators, educational institutions and student groups. Today, the typical student spends more than $900 on college books a year, according to the student-led advocacy group Make Textbooks Affordable. College textbook prices, meanwhile, have increased at twice the rate of inflation since the mid-1980s, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), published in 2005.
Publishers are also releasing new editions more frequently, partly in response to the growth of the used textbook market. The GAO found that the most widely purchased textbooks on college campuses have new editions published every three years, on average.
Johnston says he was drawn to invest in the startup Flat World in part because of the huge market for college textbooks. Nationwide, the total college textbook and course materials market was estimated at $5.5 billion for the 2006-2007 academic years, according to the National Association of College Stores.
Flat World is one of several venture-funded startups in the educational publishing space seeking to provide a lower-cost method for delivering textbooks to college students.
In addition to Flat World, at least two other textbook-focused businesses have raised funding in the past year. Chegg, a textbook rental website, raised $33.3 million in 2007 and 2008 from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Foundation Capital, Gabriel Venture Partners and Maples Management. Better World Books, which collects and sells used books and donates some profits to literacy causes, raised $4 million last spring from Good Capital and individual investors.
The Nyack, New York, US-based company was launched last year by textbook publishing executives Jeff Shelstad and Eric Frank.
Flat World offers students online books for free and the option of paying for a printed copy, which typically costs less than a comparable textbook from a college store. The textbook Principles of Microeconomics, for example, costs $30 for a black-and-white copy and $60 for one in colour.
"The idea here is the cost of textbooks has gone up dramatically over the last 10 years," says Hooks Johnston, general partner at venture firm Valhalla Partners, the largest investor in the startup. Other VC investors include Greenhill SAVP and High Peaks Venture Partners.
"For a community college student, 40 percent of the cost of attending school is the textbook cost," Johnston adds.
The impact of escalating textbook prices has been documented by regulators, educational institutions and student groups. Today, the typical student spends more than $900 on college books a year, according to the student-led advocacy group Make Textbooks Affordable. College textbook prices, meanwhile, have increased at twice the rate of inflation since the mid-1980s, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), published in 2005.
Publishers are also releasing new editions more frequently, partly in response to the growth of the used textbook market. The GAO found that the most widely purchased textbooks on college campuses have new editions published every three years, on average.
Johnston says he was drawn to invest in the startup Flat World in part because of the huge market for college textbooks. Nationwide, the total college textbook and course materials market was estimated at $5.5 billion for the 2006-2007 academic years, according to the National Association of College Stores.
Flat World is one of several venture-funded startups in the educational publishing space seeking to provide a lower-cost method for delivering textbooks to college students.
In addition to Flat World, at least two other textbook-focused businesses have raised funding in the past year. Chegg, a textbook rental website, raised $33.3 million in 2007 and 2008 from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Foundation Capital, Gabriel Venture Partners and Maples Management. Better World Books, which collects and sells used books and donates some profits to literacy causes, raised $4 million last spring from Good Capital and individual investors.
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