Global Textbook Trends 2022

Andreas Schleicher is Director for Education and Skills at the OECD. He initiated and oversees the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other international instruments that have created a global platform for policy-makers, researchers and educators across nations and cultures to innovate and transform educational policies and practices.

He has worked for over 20 years with ministers and education leaders to improve education. Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that Schleicher “understands the global issues and challenges as well as or better than anyone I’ve met, and he tells me the truth”. Former UK Secretary of State Michael Gove called Schleicher “the most important man in English education” – even though he is German and lives in France.

He is the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including the “Theodor Heuss” prize, awarded in the name of the first president of the Federal Republic of Germany for “exemplary democratic engagement”.  He holds an honorary Professorship at the University of Heidelberg.

A trailblazer in the global publishing scene, Bodour Al Qasimi is creating a positive impact on the world by pushing IPA’s agenda on the freedom to publish and intellectual property rights. Under her leadership, IPA launched many global initiatives such as the InSPIRe Initiative and IPA Academy to build solidarity within the publishing ecosystem and help publishers bridge the skills gap.

In 2019, Bodour established PublisHer – an informal networking body that seeks to increase the number of women in leadership roles within the publishing industry.

As the CEO and founder of Kalimat Publishing Group, she has been an avid advocate of the role of books and literacy in enlightening children.

Bodour also chaired the committee of Sharjah World Book Capital 2019—an honor awarded by UNESCO. Over decades, her exemplary work to further Sharjah’s contributions as a hub for reading, literacy, and culture, has culminated in global recognition for the emirate.

Bodour has a Bachelor’s degree in Archaeology and Anthropology from Cambridge University and a Master’s degree in Medical Anthropology from University College London.

José Borghino has been Secretary General of the International Publishers Association, Geneva, since 2015. He joined the IPA as Policy Director in 2013, and was in charge of policy development, organizing the Prix Voltaire (IPA’s Freedom to Publish Prize), and managing the IPA’s activities in the educational publishing sector, including the annual ‘What Works?’ conference and the Educational Publishers Forum. Before joining the IPA, José was ‘Manager, Industry Representation’ at the Australian Publishers Association. He has been Executive Director of the Australian Society of Authors, a lecturer in literary journalism and creative industries at the University of Sydney, and editor of the online news magazine NewMatilda.com. José held senior positions at the Literature Board of the Australia Council and was the founding editor of EDITIONSReview.

Since spring 2020 Stephan de Valk is chair of the Educational Publishers Forum of the International Publishers Association (IPA).

For six years now he is director of the Dutch Association of Educational Publishers (GEU). The GEU is strongly involved in public-private cooperation, especially in facilitating a secure and reliable educational ecosystem.

For more than 25 years he has been an educational publisher. Stephan has executed several roles in the managing board of Noordhoff, the largest Dutch educational publisher. As publishing director he has been responsible for Primary, Secondary and Vocational Education.

After a study in mathematics the first 10 years of his career he worked as teacher and teacher trainer.

Antti Rammo is an educational publisher and edtech entrepreneur from Estonia. Since 2009 the main field of activity for Antti have been various digitalisation projects within and outside the publishing house, also establishing an educational technology company in 2014 to offer services for the publishing industry to progress into the digital space. Those activities have been pivotal in making Estonian schools embrace high quality digital learning materials and develop the digital content market into a valuable resource for the educational publishers. The model and experience is now shared to other countries where Antti is partnering with the local educational content providers to create a fully digital approach to the curriculums.

Co-Founder of e-Sentral, which is the biggest ebook store in South East Asia. E-Sentral is a complete infrastructure for ebooks ranging from authoring tool, digital rights management server, end user reader application, as well as ebook distribution for business to consumer and business to business. Lower cost in ebook technology introduced by e-Sentral have adapted well with developing nation, namely in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Recently, the company have gained momentum in education sector with spearheading technology for digital textbook industry in Malaysia.

Faiz was born in November 1979, at Salford, England and was a qualified mechanical engineer serving the automotive industry before getting involved in Information & Communications Technology sector.

Dr. Inge Molenaar is associated professor Educational Sciences at the Behavioural Science Institute at Radboud University in the Netherlands. She has over 20 years of experience in the field of technology enhanced learning taking multiple roles from entrepreneur to academic. Her research in the Adaptive Learning Lab focusses on technology empowered innovation to optimize students’ learning. The application of data from online learning environments, apps and games in understanding how learning unfolds over time is central in her work. Artificial Intelligence offers a powerful way to make new steps towards measuring, understanding and designing innovative learning scenarios. Dr. Molenaar envisions Hybrid Human-Systems that augment human intelligence with artificial intelligence to empower learners and teachers in their quest to make education more efficient, effective and responsive. In this endeavor collaboration between governments, schools, research and industry is essential to develop the next generation educational systems. Dr. Molenaar has just received an ERC Starting Grant to develop the first Hybrid Human-AI Regulation system to train young learners’ Self-regulated learning skills with the help of AI and she also recently became a Jacobs Foundation Fellow.

Dr. Molenaar holds Master’s degrees in Cognitive Psychology and International Business studies and a PhD inEducational Sciences (University of Amsterdam).

Kelvin Tan is the CEO of Project ID, an organisation that designs innovative student-centric experiences focused on developing key leadership & soft skills. An alumnus of Teach For Malaysia’s inaugural cohort, he started his career as a public school teacher, serving 2 years in SMK Pendamaran Jaya, Klang, Selangor. While he initially started Project ID to develop high-quality soft skills programme for his underserved students in school, his organisation has since impacted students and educators in every state across Malaysia.

An accredited mental health first aider, Kelvin has also taken leadership roles in corporate including management consulting, technology startups, and data analytics. Kelvin is an Acumen Fellow and has worked with the Economist Intelligence Unit, contributing to research on sexual violence against children, and global health security.

Law King Hui is the co-founder and Group Managing Director of Sasbadi Holdings Berhad, an education solutions provider and Public Listed Company on Bursa Malaysia. He has been instrumental in the development, growth, and success of Sasbadi, and his contributions have transformed Sasbadi from a pure educational print publisher to an education solutions provider with diverse teaching and learning solutions, including digital learning technology, STEM learning products, and a network marketing business.

He enjoys a colourful career as an entrepreneur with more than 40 years of experience in the education industry. He has held numerous key positions in various organisations, including President of the Malaysian Book Publishers Association (MABOPA); Chairman of the Malaysian Book Industry Council (MBIC); Treasurer of the Majlis Buku Kebangsaan Malaysia (MBKM); President of the ASEAN Book Publishers Association (ABPA), and Chairman of the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) Advisory Council, amongst others.

His contributions led to him being selected as one of the 21 personalities documented in the publication, “Tokoh-tokoh Perbukuan Malaysia” by the National Library Malaysia, which recognises book activists and professionals who have made significant contributions towards the development of the book industry and reading culture in the country.

Lee Fei Chen is currently Senior Advisor to Times Publishing Group. When she was Head of Publishing she was responsible for formulating and implementing strategies to grow the Group’s publishing operations worldwide. The group’s subsidiaries, Marshall Cavendish, grew their footprints as an education publisher from 50 to 80 over countries this year.

Fei Chen has been with Times Publishing Group for over 30 years and has worked in its publishing businesses in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand. She was instrumental in setting up Times Publishing Group’s electronic publishing business.

Prior to that, she worked at the Ministry of Education, Singapore, and as a lecturer in Hong Kong. Fei Chen obtained her Masters in Education at Harvard University on a Singapore Government Scholarship.

Michelle Foo is currently an English teacher at SMK Dato’ Mohd Taha in Negeri Sembilan. Graduated from Maktab Perguruan Ilmu Khas Cheras in 1989 in English Language Teaching for Primary Schools (PSR-PI) and Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2000 in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL).

She was in the education industry for more than 30 years. From 1989 to 2000, she taught at a primary school. Upon completing her degree in TESL, she was posted to a Felda Scheme secondary school and, 13 years later, was redeployed to the present school in 2019.

Her experience includes being a trainer for Kurikulum Baru Sekolah Rendah (KBSR). In 2017, along with about 50 other teachers, she was appointed as one of the Master Trainers by the state education department when CEFR was introduced back in 2017.

She has been an active member of the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) since 1989. She is also actively involved in many of the union’s activities, namely the English Bureau and the Women’s Bureau. She is a committee member of the Negeri Sembilan branch. She joined the English Bureau of NUTP in 2020.

Miha Kovač is professor at the Department of Library and Information Science and Book Studies at the University of Ljubljana. In his publishing career, he worked as editorial director in the two largest Slovene publishing houses, DZS and Mladinska knjiga and as an editorial director of Slovene edition of National Geographic Magazine. He also worked as a consultant to textbook publishers in variety of Central and East European countries. In 1999 he started to lecture in the University of Ljubljana, at the Department for Information and Publishing studies and Library Science. Between 2011 and 2021 he was head of digital development at the biggest Slovene publishing house Mladinska knjiga. He is the author of more than fifty articles and four books on book history, reading and book publishing. His main research interest is publishing and reading statistics and educational publishing. His last book Is this a Book?, co-authored with Angus Phillips, was published in Elements series by Cambridge University Press this July.

Dr. Mimi Fitriana Zaini is a senior lecturer at the International University of Malaya-Wales Kuala Lumpur. She has experience in research and teaching for the past 18 years. Dr. Mimi's expertise includes Quality education, Trauma recovery, Resilience, Mental health, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Cyber Psychology. Her contribution in teaching includes Clinical Psychology, Cognitive & Behavioural Assessment, Neuropsychology and Psychological Testing. Dr. Mimi has been active in research grants collaboration with international and local universities as the lead project investigator as well as the member of a few other research grants.

Dr. Mimi is also an active speaker at Wacana Sinar Harian for a few discussions live on air, along with Astro Awani’s session on Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Dr. Mimi is also the volunteer in Malaysian Relief Agency as the clinical psychologist providing psychosocial support to the MoH frontliners during the COVID-19. With this, Dr. Mimi received Penghargaan Pasukan Bertindak Khas Greater Klang Valley (Frontliners and Social Support System) by the Senior Minister of Defence Malaysia and the Minister of Health. Dr. Mimi has also been active in providing training and development programs for corporates, some industries, and institutions.

Datin Noor Azimah is an accountant by profession. She has worked in Bank Negara, Price Waterhouse and Rashid Hussain Securities subsequently obtaining a post-graduate Certificate in Financial Planning (CFP). She opted to leave the corporate arena to raise her children and be involved in matters of education having held the positions of PTA Chairperson of SK Bukit Damansara, and Vice-Chairperson of SMK Seri Hartamas. At the height of the debate on the Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics in English in 2008, Datin Noor Azimah, along with a team of like-minded parents, founded the Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia (PAGE), a national society, to defend and ultimately ensure that “pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents”, as stated in the Education Act 1996.

She was named among The Edge’s Ten Inspiring Malaysians in 2013. She was a columnist in The Star and now writes for The Edge Weekly.

She is also Chairman of the Elena Cooke Education Fund that was formed by her alumni the Bukit Bintang Girls’ School.

She was in the National Education Advisory Council to the Minister of Education from 2018 to 2020. She is a member of G25 and committee member to Edunity Foundation, its funding arm.

Mr Pablo Rico has world-class experience in corporate learning, education, and education technologies, with leading roles in international organisations based in Spain, the USA, Ireland, Sweden, China, the Philippines, and Australia.

During his four years with BlinkLearning as the Director of Business Development, he has promoted digital publishing for K-12, language training, vocational and higher education; helping publishers, schools, and other educational institutions, in 65 countries, to drive education and digital learning to the next level.

Mr Rico holds Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Computer Science, as well as a Master’s degree in Telecom Engineering. He also has a certificate in Executive Management from the IESE Business School and OMD.

Rok Kvaternik published his first textbook – in 1988 at the age of 17. Three years later, in 1991, he founded a start-up publishing house which evolved into the biggest textbook publishing house in Slovenia. More than a decade later, his team joined Ernst Klett Verlag, the biggest German Textbook Publisher based in Stuttgart, which is today also the biggest European Textbook Publisher. Klett EE & Baltics currently includes companies spanning from Poznan, Poland, to Athens, Greece. It employs more than 500 people and delivers textbooks in all forms of media for public and private education.

Rok has thus more than 25 years of experience in publishing. In 2004, his passion to tackle the markets of former Yugoslavia kicked off Klett’s expansion in the Balkans. The company founded subsidiaries in Belgrade, Zagreb and Sarajevo. Today, the group resonates with eight offices and as market leaders in Slovenia, Serbia, Bulgaria and soon, hopefully, Croatia too.

With his innovation and entrepreneurial skills, Rok proves that traditional printed educational publishing can evolve into completely digital or blended products, which serve the needs of the modern teacher. Klett received the Gold Award for the Best Digital Product at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2014.

In his private life, Rok Kvaternik is a passionate traveller and admirer of exotic cultures, an art lover, a violinist, a blogger on restaurants, an amateur photographer, a PADI diver.

Director of Finnish Publishers Association. Lawyer by education.

Sakari Laiho has 25 years experience of publishing business - 15 of those in current position. Central part of advocating for educational publishers has been sustaining ongoing dialogue with governmental bodies like Ministry of Education and The Finnish Agency of Education.

For years he has been part of Educational Publishers Group of IPA and at the moment he is also member of the board of Federation of European Publishers.

Sum Lih Kang is the Executive Director of Pelangi Publishing Group, a regional educational publisher since 1979. He is also currently the Honorary Treasurer of Malaysian Book Publishers Association (MABOPA) and an Executive Committee member since 2015. He actively engages in activities related to publishing and education to keep abreast with the world educational trend. He aims to inspire and lead the way in educational excellence in the ever-changing global education environment. 

Pelangi Publishing Group is a regional educational publishing and printing company, with operations predominantly in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. With its role as an international Education Service Provider, Pelangi Publishing Group continues to focus on its core mission of publishing “Quality Books for Quality Education”. 

Syamil Fahim currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer for Nu Ideaktiv Sdn. Bhd. A joint venture between Kumpulan Karangkraf and Astro Malaysia. Graduated from University of Misouri-Kansas City in 1996, in the field of Computer Science specializing in Telecommunications, he joined the Karangkraf in August the same year as a management trainee.

Post management training, he was tasked with heading the Graphics Department Unit of Karangkraf. From there, his career in the publishing industry started. In subsequent years, he formed the IT department for the group and launched Karangkraf’s first web portal, www.karangkraf.com, in December 2000.

His experience includes heading the Print Division, Ultimate Print Sdn Bhd for more than 12 years before given the bigger task of heading the newly formed subsidiary, Grup Digital Karangkraf Sdn Bhd in 2010. Believing that Innovation and Technology is key to any organization’s success, he now transforms the Group to be more technology driven.

In May 2018, the largest Malay content creation company, Nu Ideaktiv Sdn. Bhd was formed, with the focus to create great Malay content on multiple platforms that spans from print, digital, social media, broadcast TV to ground events.

Planner & Innovator on education with technology. Currently leader in all digital strategy for the overseas market with Visang Education, a leading brand in textbook publishing in Korea for more than 20 years. His team has focused on the development of a blended solution for schools around the world and its expansion through partnerships for the digital alliance.

He has played broader roles in many projects such as the British Council Korea, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt International, and P.D training for teachers in Florida public schools. He has completed graduate studies at Han-Yang University in Korea and York University in Toronto.

Yeoh Cheng Poh is an experienced leader and visionary in the education and public sector. He has more than 20 years of sales and marketing experience in Asia and United States, holding senior management position in multinational corporations in the Education and Technology sector.

Cheng Poh is currently the Head at Marshall Cavendish Education (MCE), managing the educational business globally. He leads the global team in Singapore to drive the expansion and growth of MCE’s businesses through new product development, strategic partnership, and investor relations.

He is the also an Exco member of Singapore Book Publisher Association and Chairperson for Education Sub-committee.

He spent his formative career years in Microsoft Asia Pacific where he held different senior management roles in the Education and Technology divisions. He had led multi-cultural teams to achieve high performance goals in the region that includes driving sales for education software licensing and solutions, and engaging educational leaders and decision makers in the public sectors.

He was actively involved in grassroot activities and is passionate in advancement of children education, science and technology, and the development of the environment.