The question that may be at the top of every regular reader’s mind is the increase in the price of the magazine beginning this issue. We at Teacher Plus have thought long and hard before making this decision, and it is one that we have made, not lightly. We understand that these are hard times, and that it is difficult to spread scant resources across several needs that we have, personally, professionally, and as institutions.
Teacher Plus has survived for the past twenty years primarily because of institutional commitment: first from Orient Longman (now Orient Blackswan), then Spark-India with complete support from Wipro Applying Thought in Schools (WATIS) for the past two and a half years. Subsidies are not long-term solutions, in any area of activity. At best they serve as very strong bootstraps that can serve to pull you up to some level of sustainability. For a magazine, sustainability comes from two sources of income: subscriptions and advertising. We have been struggling for a long time with a subscription rate that does not begin to cover the cost of production and mailing. The increase, though steep, will now offset only a proportion of our costs. You may have noticed that there is very little advertising in the magazine, so that is not yet a pillar of support.
We would like to continue to bring the magazine to teachers without compromising on quality of articles or the finesse of production. We believe that both style and substance matter. If we are to do this, we have no option but to ask subscribers to continue to support us – at a higher level of commitment.
It’s hard to put a number on something that has to do with the output of the mind. But think about it for a moment. What would you pay for a package of valuable, professionally relevant ideas, twelve times a year? A package that you can go back to, time after time, to refresh your classroom with new spirit?