Govt spends Rs. 3,000m to print 37m textbooks

Chamikara WEERASINGHE

School textbooks in all three languages are being sent to schools and distribution centres throughout the island, Education Ministry Commissioner General of Educational Publications W.M.N.J. Pushpakumara said yesterday

The textbooks are sent to Northern and Eastern Provinces schools the same way they are sent to schools in other provinces, he said.

“The government has spent Rs 3,000 million to print 37 million school text books for 2012”, Pushpakumara said.

“Altogether, there are 45 million books to be distributed to schools with eight million used books from last year,”.

The Education Ministry Publication Department has started transporting school books to the Northern and Eastern provinces.

A total of 2,537,587 school books are being sent to the North and 3,009,792 books to the East to be distributed among grade one to 11 students. The process of transporting books to schools and the distribution among students is to be completed before December 6, keeping to the instructions of Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena. The Education Publications Department will use its own lorries to transport books to schools with over 2,000 children. The heads of schools with less than 2000 children are required to collect the books from text books distribution centres in their zones.

Pushpakumara requested principals to collect books on time so that they can distribute them among the children. “The idea is to ensure that the children are happy and that they get a chance to read them during their holidays in December,” he said.

The distribution ceremony of textbooks will be held on December 6 at Girls’ High School, Kandy.

Apart from school textbooks, the Education Ministry has printed a wide selection of teachers’ guides, resource guides and lesson planners.