Recently one of the top private schools in the UK has released their textbooks online as a free downloadable ebook, which has made many students and schools very happy. Things like this are likely to be one of the best pieces of news for schools around the world.

One of the biggest impediments to improving schools is the costs, of which textbooks are a massive contributor. With the typical textbook costing anywhere from £10-30 (with the better ones being more expensive ), when you multiply that by a 8.3 million students which are currently in school in the UK, then you’re talking about tens of millions every year being spent on textbooks.

Even though we’ve had this good news courtesy of the Stephen Perse Foundation in Cambridge, most textbooks in the UK and around the world are still bought as hard copies. There are a number of options for free books, but due to the common practice of school administrations as well as the poor quality of most of them (or how they don’t match certain syllabi), most don’t use them. Most believe it is only a matter of time though.