Distribution of school textbooks for the next academic year has begun and will be completed by December 31, the Educational Publications Department said, NewsFirst reported.
The department said books will reach all schools by that date, giving roughly three months between the start of distribution and the deadline.
The Grade 6 English module
The department specifically confirmed that the new Grade 6 English module — which ran into problems last year — has now been finalised and printed.
That is the most substantive item in the announcement. The Grade 6 English material was among the components of the new modular curriculum that did not reach classrooms cleanly on its first run, and its reprinting removes one of the known gaps ahead of the new school year.
Printing and distribution of the new Grade 2 module has also begun, and Grade 6 modules for the coming year will be distributed under the same programme.
Why the timing matters
The books are the delivery end of the modular system the government has been phasing in. Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya told Parliament this month that the shift to modules is intended to make school bags lighter, with material split into smaller units rather than single year-long volumes, alongside a move to a 50:50 weighting between continuous assessment and examinations.
A December 31 completion date would put books in schools before the academic year opens — the point at which previous rollouts have run into trouble. Distribution failures have been a recurring problem: in August, Grade One Tamil-medium textbooks were reported missing at a school in Thalangama.
Teacher unions have separately argued that the reforms are not ready.
Not reported
The department did not say how many titles or copies are involved, whether Tamil-medium and Sinhala-medium editions are on the same schedule, what caused last year’s Grade 6 English problems, or whether any other module remains unprinted. No other verified newsroom had carried the announcement at the time of writing.
