All schools to get textbooks

2009-10-29 17:35

Pretoria - The additional R524m allocated to education in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement would be used to supply textbooks to all schools in the country, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said on Thursday.

Briefing the media on the "refined" national curriculum to be phased in in January 2010, Motshekga said outcomes based education would remain. However, there was a need to streamline and simplify it.

This would include cutting down on photocopies of teaching materials and bringing back text books for all students.

"The R524m is for getting books to school," she said.

Motshekga said the objective would be to print the books from one source and cut down on the costs to the provinces.

While welcoming the additional funds, Motshekga said the money was still not sufficient to right the wrongs of apartheid that had left crumbling infrastructure and lack of quality in its wake.

"We need R168bn," she said, adding that the 2010 budget was R140bn.

"South Africa just doesn't have those resources to do it once and cleanly... we have to find creative measures. We will not have the budget to do all the necessary things.

"The legacy of apartheid is extremely stubborn to eradicate," she said.

Some of the creative measures already in place were mobile, cluster and classroom libraries, as well as getting community libraries on board to stock school-related material.

- SAPA