Parents have other options – Education Minister

The Education Minister said parents who may find the school uniform prices to be excessive can use their own tailors to sew their children's uniforms.

Doctor Mahendra Reddy said he knows that some parents have raised concern about the excessive mark ups put on uniforms by some suppliers.

He said there is no exclusive uniform supplier for any school and parents have other options available. 

Calls have been made for relevant government departments to monitor the prices of school uniforms and local exercise books as there are indications that the mark up prices are excessive.

The Consumer Council of Fiji has also said that a survey conducted by the council earlier this month clearly shows an increase in the price of locally produced exercise books.

Council CEO, Premila Kumar said the survey found that of the 85 types of exercise books surveyed, 30 percent or 26 types of books had price increases compared to prices gathered in the same period in 2014 and immediately after the budget announcement in November last year.

Kumar said when the retailers were contacted on why the prices have increased for the locally produced exercise books, one retailer blamed his staff for putting the wrong price tag while another retailer gave excuses that they had dropped the price of text books and they increased the price of exercise books to recover the cost.

Doctor Mahendra Reddy said a survey conducted by the Commerce Commission late last week shows insignificant increases on local exercise books.

However he said it is highly likely that the prices are being dropped by the retailers as the matter is now being publicly discussed.