Grade 10 and 11 learners in Kwazulu-Natal may finally be able to open their new textbooks at the end of April.
The textbooks make their arrival a whole term behind schedule because of a face-off between the provincial department of education and major book publishers at the beginning of the year.
A group of three publishers took the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education to court in January over what they said was unfair practice by the department for not allowing all publishers a fair chance to submit materials for a revised 2004 textbook catalogue.
Clive Gillitt, CEO of Nasou-Via Afrika, explains that the court action was taken because initially only a few publishers had been approached timeously by the department to make submissions for the new catalogue.
Publishers also complained that the original catalogue was loaded with technical errors. This they said compromised their submissions when the catalogue was circulated to the province’s schools.
The catalogue was drawn up chiefly to ensure that appropriate material fitting the OBE criteria be made available for Grade 10 and Grade 11 learners this year.
‘The Constitution guarantees us the right to do business in a transparent and competitive manner, but a proper administrative process from the department was non-existent in this regard,” says Gillitt.
Eventually an out-of-court settlement was reached in February this year.
‘The case was withdrawn and the orders from the first catalogue were also withdrawn. The parties agreed on a new framework and timetable to work by and we now expect the new books to reach the schools by the end of April,” says Gillitt.
He also says the settlement and new agreements have given smaller publishing houses, previously ignored in the tendering process, the opportunity to submit their material and to pitch their books to schools.
But what has been a victory for good business practice has also shown up the administrative flaws in the education department, flaws that have deprived millions of children of up-to-date educational material.
Until now, learners have been using older, interim material. Even though OBE for Grade 10 and Grade 11 is only expected to be completely implemented by 2006, the education department has had to update its educational material to make it more suitable for the aims of OBE.