Before the school year starts the same question comes round: can a school decide which shop you buy the uniform from? The answer is in guidance published by the Competition Protection Authority on its website, based on competition protection law 72 of 2020. The guidance was issued in August 2024 and still stands.
Five prohibited practices
- Obliging a pupil to use a particular seller, supplier or shop. Buying is open to any seller.
- Confining the sale of uniforms, stationery and school equipment to inside the school alone.
- Requiring all uniform items to be bought as a single bundle, and the same for stationery.
- Dealing exclusively with one manufacturer or distributor in a way that keeps others out of the market.
- Imposing a fixed selling price or a price floor.
And a sixth condition on the school itself
The guidance obliges the school to announce uniform specifications sufficiently far ahead of the school year. Announcing late is treated as a breach of competition, because parents are then left without time to compare sellers.
Where to complain
The Competition Protection Authority: phone 22202274, email info@cpa.gov.kw, offices in Sharq at Al-Hamra Tower, fourteenth floor. Hours are Sunday to Thursday, 7:30 in the morning to 2:30 in the afternoon. The authority also has an online complaint form on its site.
Photo: wooden coloured pencils. By Dietmar Rabich, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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