The second day of the eighth Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) Publishers Conference (Tuesday) saw a gathering of publishers and industry professionals from the region and the world focus on the importance of establishing a more competitive and autonomous education publishing sector, as well as highlighted latest trends in the  Arab and international children’s and Young Adult (YA) publishing market.

The day’s proceedings rolled out with keynotes and important comments from government representatives, senior publishing officials and industry heavyweights, His Excellency Hussain Ibrahim Al Hammadi – Minister of Education for the UAE; and Hugo Setzer, Vice President of the International Publishers Association (IPA); and HE Dr. Rashid Al Nuaimi, Executive Director for Media Affairs at National Media Council (NMC).

During his speech, HE Hussain Al Hammadi, said: “I would like to thank His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, for his unwavering support to boost the scientific and cultural movement in the UAE. The Publishers Conference is a unique platform that highlights the growing need to support publishing houses and build its capacities.

“The strategy of the Ministry of Education stems from the vision of the wise leadership of the country, and their plans to invest in education to create a modern and competitive educational platform to transform the country into a knowledge-based economy, and provide students with the necessary skillset of the 21st century.”

Hugo Setzer, Vice President of the International Publishers Association (IPA); emphasised the importance of building bridges and working together, saying, “Our industry is made of many parts, while not broken, are distinct and potentially there, with only a few companies succeeding in spanning across markets.” He highlighted that the UAE is the publishing association and youngest member of the IPA, and said that their challenge is to build these bridges not only with publishers, but also policy makers, helping them be aware that policy changes may affect positively or negatively the industry in key policy objectives such as educational outcomes.

Setzer mentioned the role of the IPA in building these bridges by promoting the freedom to publish. “Freedom of publishing is essential to maintain a healthy business environment to authors and publishers. It helps to instill democracy. Our aim is to promote enable an environment globally where everyone has access to everything wherever and whenever they want.

Dr Rashid Al Nuaimi noted: “This conference furthers UAE’s achievements in the cultural sector, especially in the book industry, and supports Arab publishers in a big way to keep up with latest trends, network, and expand globally. Held in conjunction with SIBF, the Publishers Conference is an essential pillar of sustainable development and a key player in building knowledge-based society and knowledge economy, as well as nurturing research and studies in all fields.

“The book industry is one of the most important industries, hence the NMC is keen to collaborate with the Emirates Publishers Association (EPA) to support it in line with UAE’s vision and strategy aimed at building a better, prosperous and sustainable future.”

The first discussion panel titled ‘Encourage competition in educational publishing’ was introduced by José Borghino, Security General of IPA, who opened the panel by highlighting the fact that education is a strategic resource and said, “When you are building an education system, you are building the future”. He highlighted the need for better collaboration between governments and education publishers in all countries, stripping away from the idea that education publishers are mere producers of commodities. He also said that the IPA has observed that the best performing education systems in the world have highly competitive and open markets designed to produce innovative products attuned to student needs. This is furthered by empowering teachers to choose the right learning resources for their classrooms.

He added: “Publishers must work together as crucial stakeholders in the education system, with government and with teachers to produce the ultimate goal of a good education system, and that’s a well-educated citizen. A healthy education publishing industry is a vital asset to any democratic society and an essential element of a competitive, knowledge-based economy.”

Wilmar Diepgrond, Chair, Educational Publishers Forum (EPF) stressed on the need distinguish school level education with what is offered at universities. He said: “at EPF, we say that teachers must have the power to choose their products from what’s in the offering to best suit their curriculum needs; we believe in maintaining a healthy balance between diversity and localisation of education resources with the government extending strong support for the growth of local education publishers; and lastly, we stress on the need for cooperation between the government and the education publishing industry in every country. Innovation in curriculum formation and implementation in schools and universities is only possible when this synergy is properly established.”

Rashid Al Kous, Executive Director, Emirates Publishers Association, brought the focus to the UAE context with the following comments: “Having built a domestic publishing industry estimated at $233 million, making the UAE the 34th largest publishing market in the world, the Emirates Publishers Association (EPA) and industry stakeholders are now focused on enhancing the competitiveness of domestic independent, entrepreneurial publishers as well as establishing the UAE as a global publishing hub for international publishers.”

Jaume Vicens, Vice Chair, EPF, shed light on the topic by highlighting the Catalonian experience. “Our ministry of education was quite nervous about whether or not they will be able to cope with the challenges of digitisation. We are more like engineers who are engineering education. We adopted a collaborative strategy where education publishers became the government’s stakeholders in the true sense of the term. We implemented the curriculum together. It is essential, therefore, that we share technology globally and implement economies of scale. We are not only printing textbooks but are developing new learning management systems that must have open access where education publishers globally must be able to feed and update content, and also make it available worldwide.”

Al Kous brought the panel to a close by highlighting the important role of the government in supporting local publishers and changing the curriculum to better respond to student needs.

The next panel session, ‘Spotlight on Arab and international children’s and YA publishing’, was introduced by the session moderator, Andrew Sharp, group rights and digital director at Hachette Children’s Books who has been in the children’s and YA publishing industry for over 20 years.

Before introducing the panellists, Sharp shed light on the resilience of the children’s book market, saying that in times of economic hardship globally, sales in this category of books hasn’t been impacted negatively as parents and teachers have continued to buy reading materials for their children even if they curtail personal purchases. “The success of the global publishing industry does rely heavily on the success of the children’s publishing industry professionals,” he said.

Rose Joannes foreign rights manager at Colodest in Belgium, began the discussion by highlighting that it is difficult to follow trends in the children’s and YA industries because by the time one catches on the trend may have very well gone away, and it’s a gamble at best. She spoke of the importance of continuity vis-à-vis trends.

She noted: “While trends are becoming more universal due to the impact of global media and film, we also make cultural bridges by facilitating a ‘cultural export’ through selling and buying rights as well as translations. It’s very nice to see very local ideas and concepts being exported and shared with the world through this movement. For instance, we have a holiday very important to children in Belgium, and a couple of years ago Chinese publishers saw these books written around the theme of this holiday and wanted them translated for their young readers. Last year, we sold rights of a Dutch novel to Penguin-Random House Mexico, and its great to know that local cultural trends can be exported and shared with the world, even with the youngest of the lot through books.”

Mones Al Hattab, from ABC Publishers in Jordan, shed light on the importance of the need for more meaningful content and careful selection of translations to shape the national identity of the Arab child. He said: “I would like to thank all foreign publishers who come to the Arab world with a bag full of wonderful titles and ideas for children. We, however, need to start asking ourselves, what do our children really need? We need content to promote the Arab identity among our youth; build their personalities and life skills. The themes of foreign books do not serve the mentality of the Arab child, especially during their formative years. It’s a gap that we need to fill with more culture-specific content.”

Taking the discussion forward, Dr. Fadwa Elboustany, owner of Boustany’s Publishing House, one of the oldest publishing houses in Egypt that was established in 1900, said that while selecting the type of works to buy international rights for and translate, and even the ones that are published by them from scratch, she focuses on the likeness between the content and the context within which her readers will be engaging with these materials. “The book has to be fun and pleasurable for the child. A child must enjoy reading the book and be introduced to the virtues of peace, love, tolerance and beauty,” she added.

Dr. Alyazia Khalifa, founder and owner of Al Fulk Translation & Publishing, UAE-based publishing house established in 2015, was also on the panel. She said that while Al Fulk translates 75 percent of its titles from English, Dutch, Italian, Korean, and other foreign languages, she has been noticing a growing need for Arabic content – both local and regional. She highlighted that original content is a must as it would help children define themselves and their identities while being cultured about the ways of the world.

All panellists agreed that children’s literature is in a way laying the foundations of the world’s future and in that sense is an aspect of human development that must be handled with extra sensitivity and care.