By KENNEDY MUPESENI –
THE trend of selling school uniforms in learning places is making education expensive and the uniform industry uncompetitive.
Almost all the schools in the country upon admitting pupils ask parents to buy school uniforms from the same schools, this leaves the parents with no choice at all.
This means that the consumer rights of parents of the school going children are completely violated.
Schools needed to provide a general standard of what type, shade and colour of uniforms are required, while ensuring that school children conform to those standards of uniforms as guided by the school.
But they should allow parents and guardians to purchase uniforms from other sources that produce similar items and most likely at competitive prices.
Lately parents and guardians have been complaining about the trend of forcing them to buy uniforms from schools which offer school places to their children saying that it was proving to be expensive.
Kevin Sampa a resident of Kabanana Township in Lusaka said tying school uniforms to school places was making education for the children very expensive despite Government schools being free from grade one to grade seven.
“This trend needs to stop because it is making education expensive because we are forced to buy school uniforms from the same schools,” Mr Sampa said.
He accused school administrators of forming a cartel to get business out of the uniforms being sold at school which are being sold at an exorbitant prices.
“Since when did schools become uniform manufacturers for them to be selling uniforms, they are making uniforms very expensive deliberately, which is not good especially that Government policy is to promote education,” he said.
Mr Sampa stated that Government should come in and correct the situation before school administrators exploit more parents and guardians.
He said parents should be given a choice to buy uniforms from places of their choice.
Patricia Mukatimuyi a resident of Matero Township in Lusaka also said Government should come in and stop the trend, adding that parents and guardians were being exploited.
“They are making school uniforms expensive because instead of parents and guardians buying uniforms from the actual source they are forced to buy them at high prices in that most of the school administrators are buying or contracting tailors to make the uniforms and then sell to us at high prices,” Ms Mukatimuyi said.
She said it was sad to note that Government schools were not spared from practicing the same anti-competitive trend.
Ms Mukatimuyi said some of the parents and guardians are tailors or they had connections with cheaper sources of the uniforms but that all those chances were not utilised because of the trend.
She appealed to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) to curb the trend centred around the uniform issue and investigate most schools in the country.
Ms Mukatimuyi said teachers were violating the competition law thus they needed to face the law upon investigations.
And CCPC says it was worried by the continued trend of some schools tying the selling of school uniforms to school places.
Public relations officer Hanford Chaaba said the commission was concerned with the trend saying it was not encouraging competition in the uniform industry.
“CCPC wants to re-echo its warning to such schools who have taken the law upon themselves by engaging in unfair trading practices that
exploited the consumers,” Mr Chaaba has said.
Mr Chaaba says the commission was worried that some teachers have continued tying school places to buying of the uniforms at the same school, a situation which is unfair and against the law as it limits consumer choices.
This kind of trading, according to CCPC, amounts to tied selling according to the Competition and Consumer Protection Act No. 24 of 2010, and all those found wanting are liable to pay the CCPC a fine not exceeding ten per cent of that person’s or enterprise’s annual turn-over or one hundred and fifty thousand penalty units (equivalent to K27,000), whichever is higher.
The Commission was saddened by this continued trend by school authorities, who should be custodians of the law, taking advantage of consumer’s desperate situations to engage in tied selling.
In 2010, the commission carried out investigations on the conduct and found that individual schools were engaged in this practice of tying the selling of uniforms to schools attendance and compelling parents to buy uniforms and other uniform accessories from them alone, a situation which is likely to cause inflation of uniform prices and reduce consumer choices as it excluded other alternative sources that provide similar uniforms.
From the study conducted, 54 per cent of the respondents felt that the school uniforms supplied by schools were expensive while 30 per cent stated that the quality of uniforms offered was often times poor and not durable enough to last for the whole period of schooling.
The Commission also established from the study conducted that 44 per cent of the interviewees felt that their children were likely to be turned away from the school if they did not buy the uniforms from designated suppliers, a situation which could frustrate Government’s efforts to provide cheaper, affordable or free education.
Further, this conduct would also appear to contradict the Ministry of Education National Policy on Education which entrusts Educational Boards with sufficient discretionary powers to enable them to take positive and affirmative action on behalf of the poor and vulnerable.
The commission, therefore, requested the perpetrators to desist from such vices as the law will soon catch up with them.
If this trend is not nipped in the bud then parents and guardians will continue to be exploited by teachers and school administrators.
There is need to stop the trend as it is frustrating Government efforts on providing education for all which is among the millennium development goals and the vision 2030.
All the impediments to access education must be removed to meet the set goals for the country.
