Sri Lanka, March 20 -- Education Minister Susil Premajayantha told Parliament yesterday that the programme of providing sanitary napkins to the schoolgirls for free will be started from April this year.

Accordingly, the Education Ministry is planning to provide free sanitary napkins to 800,000 schoolgirls above Grade six. The minister also said that vouchers will be issued for this purpose.

The minister who commented further said that science and health have been made a compulsory subject from Grade 6 to 9 in the education curriculum.

The minister also pointed out that the measures have already been taken to raise awareness about sexual and reproductive health and an additional reading book called 16+ has been introduced for Advanced L...