School uniforms scheme a failure, claims Ravi K

By Ashwin Hemmathagama

Our Lobby Correspondent

School uniform material, which has been given free to all students since 1993, has “become a failure due to incompetency of the education officials,” according to UNP MP Ravi Karunanayake, who claims irregularities and discrepancies is seen in the distribution where some schools in the Colombo District do not receive it at all.

Using the allocation of Rs. 2,240 million, the Government has been able to distribute school uniform material among 3,996,531 students. “We are quite sure that all students have received these for school uniform materials,” assured Minister Gunawardena, despite the facts revealed by MP Karunanayake.

“Until 2011, what was distributed were 100% manufactured in Sri Lanka. But with the suppliers finding it difficult to meet the delivery on time, we sought Cabinet approval to import some quantities from China. As a result 50% of the requirement was imported from China and the remainder was met by the State Trading Corporation,” which is not into textile manufacturing business, according to Minister Gunawardena.

“However, we will consider the possibilities of meeting the total requirement from the local manufacturers,” he said.