The economics of vernacular education
The theoretical needs of vernacular education are often compromised by the
simple expedience of economics. Many developing countries are obliged to
introduce a world language as a medium of instruction and use the corresponding
text-books, because their own resources are so slender that they
cannot afford a programme of text-book translation or teacher-training in
the vernacular (Whiteley, 1969). The same applies for linguistic minorities.
Each time a book is written for Frisian tuition, for example, the author has to
find some generous Frisian association or authority who will supply the
funds to have it published. These funds are, however, limited. There is also
usually relatively little return on sales, because books in such small editions
(e.g. 500 copies) are expensive to produce but cannot be sold at too
expensive a price as otherwise the public aimed at will not be able to afford
the book. Thus a large percentage of each grant is automatically lost.
Because of the cost, printing as such has largely been abandoned in NF, at
least for school materials, and the off-set production technique is preferred,
or materials are simply produced, xeroxed and thrown away after use.