Article & Journal Resources

December 11 2007 at 07:50PM

By Angelique Serrao


When school reopens next year, several Gauteng schools will be without new curriculum textbooks.

This comes as the company responsible for delivery of the books - EduSolutions - has failed to deliver the books despite a November 30 deadline given by the MEC for Education, Angie Motshekga.

And this means that many of next year's Grade 12 pupils - the first group of matriculants to work with the outcomes-based curriculum - will start the year on the back foot as teaching will begin only once the new books have been delivered.

EduSolutions, a distribution company employed by the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) to distribute stationery and textbooks to government schools, was recently found to be charging exorbitant prices for pencils and other items, some of which the schools hadn't ordered.

Schools were due to get their Grade 12 textbooks through EduSolutions, after a specific subsidy had been made available by the national Department of Education to ensure that all matrics have their books.

Monday, the department was not prepared to comment on the non-delivery of the textbooks.

On October 3, Motshekga said the deadline for the delivery of textbooks was November 30, and she promised that all schools would have their books.

Marks Ramasike, spokesperson for the Schools Governing Body Association in Soweto, said many secondary schools in the area had not received any books, while only some have had stationery delivered to their schools.

"I have questioned many of the secondary schools in Soweto and many of them have had no books delivered.

"The department, in terms of their management plans, promised that all books would be delivered by November 30. Schools have now closed, so I have to question whether books will be in schools by day one of the 2008 school year."

Since schools closed, Ramasike has been in meetings with GDE officials to try to find out why there have been no deliveries to certain schools.

"They told me they would be delivering during the school holidays. But who will they be delivering to?" he asked.

Ramasike said members of school-governing bodies in other areas across Gauteng had told him they were experiencing the same problem.

"I'm not even sure how the primary schools have been affected because so far I have only questioned secondary schools."

Kathy Callaghan, from the Governors' Alliance, said her organisation had meetings with schools across Gauteng on November 28 and most schools had not received their textbooks.

"To the best of my knowledge, schools have not had textbooks delivered. I am talking particularly about the Grade 12 textbooks," Callaghan said.

She said the late delivery of books was something schools had had to put up with every year.

"This is an ongoing problem we have had with EduSolutions since their tender was awarded in 2003. All our complaints over the years - and we have done everything we can to stop this - have fallen on deaf ears," Callaghan said.

"The first few weeks of school are a write-off, and some schools don't even get anything after the first quarter of the year. Generally the delivery of books is quite poor."

Callaghan said most schools were made aware that they had to order Grade 12 textbooks only in November.

"People from EduSolutions came by and dropped off the catalogue in November. Schools were told they had one day to fill them in, which is an impossible task.

"To add to this, their charges are outrageous. They charge a levy and a delivery fee. We had a case of one school being charged R60 000 for that alone," Callaghan said.

One school in Joburg's northern suburbs showed The Star a delivery slip from EduSolutions for books that were delivered in November.

The slip showed the same book printed twice on the slip, first in small letters and then in capital letters, and the charge for the book, more than R16 000, was printed twice.

The school received 146 books, although they were charged for 292.

The Democratic Alliance's spokesperson for education, David Quail, called on Motshekga to conduct a forensic audit into EduSolutions.