00:03Now, parents and guardians across the country are welcoming the education minister's announcement
00:08that they will soon save upwards of $1,000 on back-to-school expenses
00:13as the government moves to replace physical textbooks with AI textbooks.
00:19However, at least one bookseller is of the opinion that this move could signal the end of an entire industry.
00:26Booksellers, publishers, distributors, just some of the players who stand to be negatively impacted
00:32by the government's push towards e-learning tools, according to Managing Director of Charon's Bookstore, Vivek Charon.
00:40We are holding on by our fingernails, if you want to say it that way.
00:43And now the government wants, in a sense, it appears to be that they're taking away what little is left
00:50and putting us on notice that within the next three years, there will be no books to sell.
00:55And if that is the case, then perhaps they need to really make an official announcement
00:59and call us in and say that they have determined that there will be no use for bookstores within the
01:07next three years.
01:08Now, it's not just the booksellers.
01:10When we go down, which we will, the publishers go down, the distributors go down, the printers go down,
01:17the freight companies, the warehouses, the sale reps, the entire supply chain that puts a book into a child's hand
01:23is at risk.
01:24This is not just one sector.
01:25This is an ecosystem.
01:27And the government is pulling it apart without understanding what it is connected to.
01:33On Tuesday, Education Minister Dr. Michael Darlath announced that AI-assisted digital textbooks
01:39for mathematics and language arts are now available for former students on the government-supplied laptops.
01:46Come September, four additional digital textbooks will be available.
01:51I want to categorically state that we are not against technology.
01:56What we are against is being treated as disposable.
01:59What we are against is not being consulted in any form or fashion on a policy that can so severely
02:07affect our livelihood
02:09within the context of an economy that appears to us to be contracting when we ourselves have difficulty in running
02:19our own businesses.
02:20And we are calling the Ministry of Education to please sit down with us, sit down with the booksellers,
02:26sit down with all the stakeholders involved before expanding your program any further.
02:32Again, we are not against technology or the use of technology in schools.
02:39As a matter of fact, we are all for letting it run its course.
02:43If you do the research, you will see that many countries have gone down the way of using AI
02:47and have gone down the way of using e-textbooks and non-physical textbooks.
02:53And slowly over time, it hasn't worked out the way that they thought it did.
02:57And many of them are now going back to physical textbooks.
03:00Meantime, Tutor is also calling for stakeholder engagement,
03:03with teachers being expected to utilize the digital resources.
03:08Tutor would have noted that the Ministry of Education would have recently launched its AI, mathematics, and English language platform.
03:15Tutor would like to say that, yes, we support all initiatives that would enhance the teaching learning process,
03:21and we welcome them.
03:23At the same time, we look at international experiences and so on,
03:27other countries that would have done this already,
03:29and we ask the Ministry of Education to be a bit cautious in the entire rollout.
03:35We ask that communication and collaboration continue between the recognized majority union,
03:41between all stakeholders in terms of education, personnel,
03:45the training that is necessary for all of them to ensure the successful implementation of said project.
03:51Renessa Cutting, TV6 News.
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