I’ll throw the book at the book mafia: Ranil

19 September 2015 02:47 am Views - 8805

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremeisnghe yesterday pledged to confront the text book mafia which prevented students from gaining access to quality text books.

At the opening of the Colombo International Book Fair at the BMICH yesterday, the Prime Minister said the Education Ministry was involved creating a monopoly of few publishers leaving out those known for quality text books.

“Our government will be accused of giving contracts to mudalalis but we will have to find good publishers who are prepared to supply quality text books,” he said.

The Prime Minister said unlike in the past, today's students had been deprived of reading books by famous authors like Martin Wickremesinghe.

“Martin Wickremesinghe may be thrown out of the Education Ministry if he happens to offer his books to the ministry in this time and age,” he said.
The Prime Minister said the allocation of funds to schools would be increased to ensure that schools would be in a position to buy quality text books and books for school libraries.

He said only 15 per cent of the funds allocated to school books was used for the purpose with a greater share spent on travelling, fuel and for other administrative purposes.

The Prime Minister said said there should be a balance between the new technology and the book-publishing tradition.

“The new technology has given the people the opportunity of reading books on the internet but one has to maintain a balance between the old and modern ways,” he said.(Yohan Perera)