Local educational officials should not randomly change primary and middle school textbooks, especially not for private gain, said an article in Beijing Youth Daily (excerpts below).

The CCTV news program Topics in Focus revealed on Saturday that local educational authorities in Hainan province and Jiangmen, Guangdong province have changed textbooks for middle and primary schools.

Although the Ministry of Education encourages diversity, it also stipulates that once textbooks have been decided, educational authorities have a duty to maintain them so that consistency can be guaranteed.

The reason for the change may lie in the huge market not just for textbooks but for reference books.

There are more than 200 million middle and primary school students in China, and expenditure on textbooks and reference books is more than 60 billion yuan ($9.78 billion). If local schools change textbooks, some people will earn a huge amount of money from the purchase of reference books.

Education concerns the future of our country. It cannot be tampered with in this manner.