Textbooks Smell Odd; Printing Error Initially Suspected

Recently, quite a few parents in Guangzhou reported that the newly issued English textbooks for the third and fourth grades of primary school smelled unpleasant.

Because of the unpleasant smell, some parents hung the textbooks in a ventilated place at home to air them out.

On September 4, the Guangzhou Municipal Education Bureau contacted the publisher of the textbooks (Educational Science Publishing House) and the distributor (Guangzhou Xinhua Bookstore) to handle the matter promptly.

According to a preliminary judgment, the cause of the odor in the textbooks was the printing and packaging of the textbooks. An operational error during the printing process, with excessive sealing oil, led to an overly strong smell in the textbooks.

The publishing house and the printing plant promised that, for the whole batch of third- and fourth-grade primary school English textbooks

all would first be replaced and then recovered.

At present, some schools have started the replacement today,

and all schools will complete the replacement by September 7

, so as to minimize the impact on the use by teachers and students. At the same time, the publishing house urgently contacted the Guangdong Education Cloud platform to launch the original digital textbooks simultaneously, making it convenient for teachers and students to prepare lessons and preview.

According to a relevant person in charge of the Educational Science Publishing House, the textbooks were printed by Guangzhou Suicai Printing Co., Ltd., which has green printing qualifications,

and the ink used for this batch of textbooks meets environmental protection standards.

The publishing house immediately took samples of the same batch of textbooks from Guangzhou Suicai Printing Co., Ltd. (Grade 3, Volume 1: 1st edition, August 2012, 10th printing, June 2021; Grade 4, Volume 1: 1st edition, July 2013, 9th printing, June 2021) and sent them to an authoritative quality supervision and testing institution for testing. The testing conclusion was "the test results of all items meet the requirements of Clause 5.2 of Standard HJ2503-2011 (Technical Requirements for Environmental Labeling Products - Printing, Part 1: Lithographic Printing)".

The Guangzhou Municipal Education Bureau responded:

the samples of the book met the requirements after testing

In response, the Guangzhou Municipal Education Bureau said last night (September 3) that it had immediately learned of the situation reported by some parents about the odor in the third- and fourth-grade primary school English textbooks. This set of textbooks is a national curriculum standard primary school English textbook approved by the Ministry of Education and is used by primary school students in Guangzhou. The procurement and distribution of the textbooks are organized uniformly by the provincial Xinhua Bookstore, and the printing of the textbooks is organized by the Educational Science Publishing House, which is directly under the Ministry of Education, through relevant printing plants.

The Guangzhou Municipal Education Bureau stated that, after verification with the publishing house, this set of textbooks is currently selected only by Guangzhou. Samples of the book have been sent to Beijing for testing, the test report has been issued and meets the requirements, and the publisher and the distributor of the textbooks have been contacted to handle the matter promptly.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-378194.html