IT’S all smooth sailing thus far within the Ndlambe municipal district, with textbooks having been delivered timeously to most our schools.
Schools in the area which TotT was able to contact gave positive feedback regarding having received their necessary tuition stationary and textbooks for the year, with only the minor setback of Grade 10s in Velile High School in Bathurst.
“We’re expecting more to come this week from Bhisho,” principal Wanda Mpandisa said. He attributed the shortage to the fact that the number of pupils had doubled at the school.
Port Alfred High School received an excess number of textbooks, although the ones in excess are Afrikaans versions of the textbooks in use for the English medium curriculum.
“They sent us too many Afrikaans textbooks,” said PAHS headmaster Clive Pearson. “I’ve managed to offload some of the extras to PJ Olivier and Alexandria Primary and Port Alfred Primêre schools.”
Nomzamo Secondary School has also received their allotment of resources.
But there were some hiccups at other schools.
“We had a challenge with workbooks,” said Dambuza Primary School principal Melvyne Sillis. “We managed to go to Grahamstown to track some books.”
The only school to not have received any textbooks from the department of education is Shaw Park Primary School, but principal Liezel Willows assured that it had not slowed the school’s progress.
“We bought our own, and used our school budget,” Willows said.
A presentation to the portfolio committee on basic education two weeks ago by the Democratic Alliance stated that only 42% of schools in the Eastern Cape had received their textbooks for this academic year.
The Eastern Cape has consecutively ranked in the bottom three of provincial matric results for the past three years.
