CTU exposes malpractice in Education Ministry

Ceylon Teachers' Union (CTU) today said that the Ministry of Education had lost Rs. 128 million due to the use of synthetic papers to print Grade seven Geography textbooks last year, according to the Auditor General's Report.

CTU General Secretary Joseph Stalin said the Auditor General’s Department had observed that it would have cost only Rs 25 million if usual paper materials had been used. However, it had to sustain a cost of Rs. 154 million as it used synthetic papers. He said such materials caused heath hazards to schoolchildren.

Therefore Mr. Stalin said that department had observed the additional cost of Rs. 128 million as a loss .

According to the Audit Report, Mr. Stalin said the Education Ministry had spent Rs. 305.55 in excess for a textbook as a result .

He said that it was revealed in the Presidential Special Investigation Report that around Rs. 130 million had been misused by the action and the print was harmful for schoolchildren.

Although the report recommended such textbooks should be withdrawn from use . He said the malpractices had been identified in the tender proceedings. Mr. Stalin said no disciplinary action had been taken against the responsible officials over the matter.

The CTU urged the authorities concerned to take disciplinary actions against responsible officials and to recover the loss made to the country immediately.

The education authorities had printed 320,000 copies of textbooks in Sinhala medium , 120,000 in Tamil medium and 60,000 copies in English. (Thilanka Kanakarathna)