Price of Israeli schools books are inflated. An investigation by "Globes" and an inquiry commissioned by Minister of Interior Eli Yishai found a huge mark-up between the books' product costs and their retail price.
For example, the Yishai inquiry found that a Grade 10 math book that costs NIS 10 to print costs NIS 98, and that an atlas, which costs NIS 14 to print, is sold for NIS 189. The printing cost of books included in the inquiry was NIS 6-17, but the retail mark-up reached as high as 800%.
"School books are the only product that the government compels parents to buy, and we should therefore be the regulator. But we're not doing enough," said Yishai. "The government should intervene on the prices."
Israel's school market turnover is NIS 600 million a year. According to the Statistical Abstract for 2010, Israel has 1,483,000 pupils in Grade 1-12, which means that tens of thousands of copies of each textbook are sold every year.
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