6 January 2000
The African National Congress received with shock the news that some children will go to school without books when the schools re-open for the new term next week. Such a situation is absolutely unacceptable and we, as an organisation will spare no effort in seeing to it that students get their books without any delay. Whatever the explanation, there is no way that we can tolerate a situation where children go into class without learning materials.
The Government must put its foot down and see to it that when the schools open next week, every learner has all the necessary requirements so that teaching and learning starts immediately. The explanations given for this anomaly, such as late placement of orders, gives one the impression that there are people in the department who do not take the education of our children seriously.
We appeal to all stake holders in education to identify such elements and report them to the authorities so that appropriate steps can be taken to remedy this unfortune situation.
The situation is made even more serious by the fact that we are still smarting from poor matric results in some of the provinces.
One would have expected such results to serve as a wake-up call for the Education department personnel, and make them roll up their sleeves to ensure that our Minister of Education's undertaking to improve on last year's results a reality.
This, we believe, can be achieved only if the department's personnel is subjected to a regular performance audit and any deadwood that we may still have in the department is weeded out.
Issued by: Nat Serache - Media Liaison Officer
Department of Information and Publicity
51 Plein Street
Johannesburg.
Contact Number: 083 492 2337