After receiving a tip-off, the Sunday Times on Friday discovered that millions of rands worth of school textbooks had simply been dumped at a warehouse in King William’s Town, in the Eastern Cape.

From the Sunday Times:

The discovery comes on the eve of a high court bid by public interest law clinic SECTION27, to force the national Department of Basic Education and Limpopo’s Education Department to supply textbooks to the province’s schools.

Some of the books in the warehouse have been replaced by new ones in grades 1 to 3, and Grade 10, as a result of the implementation of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement. But books still being used by pupils in other grades were also in the building. Textbooks based on the new curriculum for the other grades are only expected to be supplied to schools from the end of this year and early next year.

Teachers and teachers’ union Sadtu have described the dumping of the books as “scandalous”, and asked why the Eastern Cape Education Department hadn’t distributed them last year.

Even though some of the textbooks are out of date in respect to the constantly changing South African education curriculum, one would think that somewhere, someone could make use of them.

Peter Moses, a local King William’s Town school’s head of department at Breidbach Primary School, said:

It’s millions of rands down the drain. The books were unopened – they were still in their plastic seals. It’s really unbelievable to do something like that. [It’s] a shame.

He said his English-medium primary school only received its English workbooks last Thursday, after the Sunday Times had twice highlighted the fact that the school had been given books in Xhosa.

Riaan Erasmus, the owner of the warehouse, said between 20 and 25 bakkie-loads of textbooks were sold to him in mid-November.

In November, a lot of these brand-new books were returned to us by guys claiming they were old curriculum stuff. I just think the distributors didn’t work properly and these people somehow got rid of them instead of taking them to schools. Those who got the contract maybe should be held responsible.

One of the bakkie drivers had told Erasmus that the reason they were getting rid of the textbooks was because they were “clearing out the offices” to make “way for books issued in terms of the new curriculum,” according to the Sunday Times.

Erasmus has been doing what the Eastern Cape Department of Education should have done with the textbooks: offering them to schools because teachers say they can still be used:

They’re delighted. One said she had had two books for 40 pupils, now she can give a book to every one. It’s my personal responsibility to do something with them instead of throwing the stuff away. Government officials clean their offices and bring their stuff here. There’s a constant stream of people coming in.

He had paid for the textbooks, but couldn’t remember off hand what the amount was.

Loyiso Pulumani, Eastern Cape Education Department spokesman, confirmed to the Sunday Times that the department would launch an urgent investigation, and that the destruction or recycling of textbooks was not a policy of the department.

[Source: SundayTimes]