Doing maths on textbooks
All 785 of the fee-paying schools in the Western Cape that ordered textbooks in June last year, for this year, received them in November.
Last Friday was the cut-off date for schools in the province to order textbooks for next year.
Western Cape education spokesperson Paddy Attwell said the deadline for ordering textbooks had been brought “progressively forward” over the past three years.
He said schools could order textbooks using the department’s online ordering system and had to pay for them from the allocation they received from the department.
“We can’t afford to buy new books every year for every subject and grade. It’s essential that learners and parents co-operate with schools to ensure the success of their textbook retrieval programmes.”
The department spent R605-million between April 2011 and March 2014 to provide eight illion textbooks and reading books. He said schools now had to maintain these stocks by “topping up” to meet increasing demand and to replace lost and damaged books.
Unlike Limpopo, which stipulates that only 40% of its allocation to schools must be used for textbooks, Gauteng schools can use half of their allocation for this purpose.
The Gauteng education department insisted that the funds it gave to fee-paying schools for textbooks were sufficient. “These schools are fee-paying and, as a result, they can sustain themselves. Allocation is just supplementary to these schools.”
This despite the fact that 65 259 pupils attending fee-paying schools in the province in 2014 qualified for fee exemptions, resulting in a chunk of income being lost.
Fee-paying schools in KwaZuluNatal can use 60% of the funds from the department to buy textbooks.
This means that a quintile four school could spend R313.20 per learner on textbooks this year and a quintile five school R107.40.
The provincial education department said limited finances determined the allocations. “The issue at hand is not whether the department believes that the allocation is sufficient. National policies are clear on this matter. Quintile four and five schools are fee-paying and they are empowered to raise additional funds. These schools therefore have additional financial resources that can be utilised for purposes of LTSM [learner-teacher support material] procurement as and when necessary.” At least 1 031 feepaying schools in KwaZulu-Natal, including 713 that are responsible for buying textbooks themselves, will be purchasing them for next year through a central procurement process that is managed by the department.
North West’s education department said its 34 fee-paying schools had received their full quota of LTSM for this year, but that it did not buy textbooks for each learner every year: “We only buy textbooks on a top-up basis. Additional textbooks are only procured to address shortages caused by increased enrolment or lost or damaged books.” —