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School uniform vouchers to be given from January 2
View(s):The new government has decided to distribute long-delayed uniform vouchers to the 4.3 million schoolchildren in the country.
The newly reappointed Education Minister, Akila Viraj Kariyawasam, said arrangements were being made to distribute the vouchers when school reopen on January 2. “We have sent all vouchers to the education zones and they will be distributed to schools as soon as schools reopen,” he said.
The vouchers’ validity has been extended until end of February.
He said the 50-day impasse in politics had delayed the distribution of the vouchers. The former government had planned to distribute the vouchers when schools closed for the 2018 academic year, but the sudden change in administration that followed the appointment of a new prime minister by President Maithripala Sirisena on October 26 caused chaos.
Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s new government was in a quandary over the uniforms arrangements as the vouchers had images of ousted UNP minister Kariyawasam. By the time the government decided to distribute the vouchers, schools had closed for the year. The Education Ministry has made a special allocation of Rs. 2.45 billion for school uniform materials.
The Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU) says giving vouchers instead of uniform material was a nuisance for parents who have to go to schools to collect the vouchers and then shop around for the materials. CTU General Secretary Joseph Stalin said the programme was a failure as often several parents failed to cash the vouchers given to students. He said that last year vouchers worth Rs. 400 million had not been cashed.
The CTU insists that the government should change the voucher system and go back to handing out uniform material to schoolchildren.