Pretoria – A total of 11 946 386 workbooks have been delivered to schools, with the rest expected to be delivered in June 2011.
Presenting the department’s R13.868 billion budget on Wednesday, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga acknowledged the delays in the distribution of workbooks due to challenges including incorrect addresses for some schools and new schools not being on the database.
She said to limit errors, the department has determined the number of learners and will verify the data with Provincial Education Departments. District managers and principals will be informed of the process of delivery.
“The workbooks have been developed differently and with huge savings and much has been learnt from the process of their development, and the money will be ploughed back into the system to add more learner support materials.
“We will be able to add more workbooks in other subjects and extend their provision to other grades beyond Grade 6 … [which is] vital for a delivery-driven basic education system,” the minister said.
Motshekga said the department should up its current delivery programme through the establishment of a Planning and Delivery Oversight Unit, whose task is to ignite the delivery process.
“This unit’s mandate will be to take forward the processes and initiatives currently underway, guided by the current administration’s outcomes approach.
“Among other things, it will have to work with and through provinces to weave together all the current initiatives so as to allow for a coherent value chain from policy to implementation in the classroom,” she said.
Full details on the unit would be announced in the next eight weeks.
On the Annual National Assessments written in February, Motshekga said the results will be released on 29 April 2011, while the provinces will release results for the supplementary exams in May 2011. – BuaNews
