School uniform material to be purchased locally

The total requirement of school uniform material for next year will be purchased from local manufacturers, Education Minister Susil Premajayantha said yesterday.

He said 10,450,000 metres of uniform material is needed for distribution among schools and pirivenas next year.

This includes 1,200,000 metres of white cloth, 1,000,000 metres of blue drill and 25,000 metres of saffron clothes for pirivena student Bhikkhus. The entire exercise will cost the Ministry Rs. 1,260 million. The Ministry has planned to conclude the distribution soon to ensure that all students receive their 2009 uniform material before the end of the current school term.

Meanwhile school textbooks required for distribution next year are being printed at 35 printing institutions and 20 have already completed printing their quota of books, said the Commissioner of Education Publications yesterday.

He said printing institutions which failed to print books on time according to their contract terms would be fined and struck off the list of textbook printers. The unfinished quota would also be handed over to printing establishments which have completed their contracts and quotations have been called for this purpose.

He said the printing of books had been hampered due to the strike at the State Printing Corporation and as such the printing of balance books owed by this corporation would have to be handed over to the private sector to prevent any delay in the distribution of books.