School textbook distribution before February 15

COLOMBO: This year's school textbook distribution process will be completed before February 15, said Educational Publications Department Director General N. Dharmasena.

The distribution of text books is done according to orders received by his Department from Zonal Directors of Education, he said adding that the process could not be completed earlier due to wrong orders received from certain areas.

If there was a shortage of text books in certain schools it was due to wrong or incomplete orders from the respective areas.

The Department hoped to make representatives to the Education Ministry recommend disciplinary action against school and zonal authorities responsible for submitting wrong orders to prevent such delays in the future.

Grade 7, 10 and 11 text books printed according to late orders are now being supplied to the department by respective publishes and arrangements have been made to distribute them to schools without delay so that the entire process would be completed before February 15.

Students in other grades should use old books used by their predecessors. New textbooks are supplied to those grades only to fill in any shortage.

The Education Ministry allocated Rs. 2,000 million for the school textbook distribution scheme this year.