Gauteng Education to assist schools with CAPS textbooks

During the recent verification audit of school readiness for 2013, the department identified 631 primary schools and 378 secondary schools that did not have sufficient funds to order Learner Teacher Support Material (LTSM) for CAPS rollout to ensure that all learners had access to at least one textbook per subject.

CAPS is being extended to Grades 4 to 6 in primary schools and Grade 11 in secondary schools.

Department spokesperson Charles Phahlane explained that schools with section 21.1c status, order their own books while the department orders LTSM for all other schools.

There are about 1800 schools with section 21.1c status in the province; these include fee-paying schools, or quintile 4 and 5 schools.

"The verification exercise among all schools found that some did not have sufficient allocated funds to purchase LTSM for the CAPS rollout in Grades 4 to 6, as well as Grade 11. Also there are 383 primary and 145 secondary schools that did not have sufficient funds to top up LTSM for grades that already implement CAPS, that is, Grades 1 to 3 and Grade 10," Phahlane explained.

He said that the audit enabled the department to be proactive in assisting schools and to make sure that all necessary LTSM was available at every school by the start of the schooling year in 2013.

The provincial department will utilise its own funds to assist the schools to procure the necessary material for next year and will support all fee paying and no-fee schools to top-up where the subsidy is insufficient.

"This process is consistent with the Council for Educators decision to support all schools to procure all the necessary CAPS material for next year in the implementing grades. The province will procure from a central point to take advantage of economies of scale and ensure timeous deliveries."