Pupils in Limpopo will have textbooks in time for the 2014 academic year, education MEC Dikeledi Magadzi said on Monday.
"We have to finalise 334 [schools] in Mopani. We have 100% in Vhembe and Capricorn, 99 [percent of schools] in Sekhukhune and before the end of this week would have finished Waterberg," Magadzi said during a tour of the department's textbook warehouse in Seshego, Polokwane.
The department assigned the South African Post Office (Sapo) to deliver textbooks to schools.
This followed delivery problems to schools in the province in 2012. Many schools received their textbooks towards the end of the year.
In 2012 both the Limpopo and national basic education departments were compelled by three different court orders to deliver textbooks to the province's schools.
No doubts
Magadzi had no doubts Sapo had performed as asked.
"I would say this is a better system … I think we don't need to change… it is not broken," she said.
Sapo logistics manager Colleen Gray said the deliveries were going well. Magadzi said the cost of buying textbooks was concerning government and delaying development.
Some schools did not get textbooks back from pupils at the end of school year. Principals were warned that if they failed to do so they could lose benefits.
Failure to retrieve textbooks meant government had to pay publishing companies to print them again.
She said textbooks destroyed in a fire at Jules High School near Malamulele would be replaced. – Sapa