- More than 16 billion rupees for printing text books this time
- The Minister of Education Susil Premajayantha
Under the government procedure of providing free school text books to the students, the inaugural program of distribution of text books relevant to the 2023 study year was started today at the stores complex of the Education Publications Department situated at Pitipana Homagama under the leadership of The Minister of Education Dr. Susil Premajayantha. At this occasion the minister said that he expects to finish the distribution of all necessary textbooks before 27th of March the starting date of the school study year 2023. Accordingly, it is scheduled to complete the text books requirement giving priority to the provision of essential text books to the primary grades and the subjects of 6 – 11 grades, he said.
Further expressing his ideas, the minister said that although the normal cost for textbooks printing for one year is about 4.5 billion rupees, this time the government spent more than 16 billion rupees for printing more than 350 categories of text books in three languages and it is a four-time increase compared to the earlier expenditure. This time the State Printing Corporation completes 45% of the text book requirement obtaining raw materials under the Indian loan scheme and the remaining 55% of it is provided by 22 private printing institutions. He expressed his thankfulness to private printing institutions who took up the printing of text books only after receiving an initial advance payment.
In the first stage the text books are distributed among difficult areas and then the distribution is done among the schools in the capital city and suburbs. The minister also said that he expects to finish the distribution of text books to all government schools, government assisted schools and Pirivenas within the scheduled time frame overcoming the economic challenges and the spreading of malicious rumors. And he further mentioned appreciating the provision of necessary funds by the treasury and he expects that support in the future.
Furthermore, the type and shape of the text books may be changed in the future and it will not be done instantly but gradually and it will be implemented after the introduction of modules and the pilot program in this year and it will be implemented in three stages next year. The subject of Information Technology will be updated in this year and 13,700 teachers are being trained to start the primary classes with the use of English language. All these educational transformative procedures planned during the last several months are ready for implementation now, said the minister.
The State Minister of Education Aravind Kumar, the Secretary of Education Mr. M.N. Ranasingha, the Commissioner of Education Publications Mr. Z. Thajudeen and other officers attended this occasion.
