States’ spending on school teaching materials could drop by 10-15 per cent this year, McGraw-Hill cautioned on Wednesday, but it forecast a counter-cyclical boost for the higher-education market from the US recession.

The comments from the educational and financial publisher marked the first public forecast for 2009 from its peer group, which includes Pearson, the owner of the Financial Times, and private equity-owned groups such as Cengage and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.