The Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal made by the Minister of Education Akila Viraj Kariyawasam to print a selected number of school textbooks in long-lasting and high quality synthetic paper as a pilot project in 2017.
The government spends about Rs. 3,500 million annually for providing free school textbooks and the Department of Educational Publications has implemented a program to improve the reuse of textbooks it has been observed that a certain book could not be used for more than three (03) years. Therefore, about 70% of textbooks have to be reprinted annually.
Accordingly, the minister in his Cabinet Memorandum sought the approval to print the three Geography textbooks for grade 07 and selected Teachers’ Instruction Manuals of Grade 2 and 8 for 2017 as the pilot project.