Out of its role in protecting and revitalizing the competition and fighting against any monopolistic practices in the markets through the relevant laws and resolutions, the Ministry of Business and Trade put an end to the monopolistic practices made by some uniforms’ providers in agreement with some private schools.
The Competition Protection & Prevention of Monopoly Practices Committee in the ministry discussed the uniforms issue, and examined what do some private schools do in agreement with uniforms’ selling companies, like requiring parents to purchase school uniforms exclusively from these companies, and decided to notify the mentioned parties to stop restricting the parents’ right to choose the shop or supplier they want to buy from.
The Committee also called the uniform provider companies and schools to raise the committed violations and rectify their situations in line with Law No. 19 of 2006 on the protection of competition and prevention of monopolistic practices.
The Committee also addressed the Supreme Education Council SEC on the steps that must be undertaken in the future to prevent the private schools from forcing parents to buy school uniforms from particular shops.
Among those steps, schools must determine only the shape and color of the uniforms without the necessity to include labels or overlapping colors and similar things that compel the parents to buy from a specific shop. SEC should also direct the schools to provide the school logo to the parents, leaving for them the freedom to buy the school uniform from any place they want, and it should also forbid private schools, starting from the next academic year (2013 – 2014), from selling uniforms within the school campus.