With less than three months before thousands of Eastern Cape matric pupils sit down for their year-end exams, three high schools in Flagstaff are still awaiting their Grade 12 stationery and books.
Fears are mounting about how this could impact on the final matric results in the three affected schools.
On Thursday, DispatchLIVE received calls from staff from Mhlanga Senior Secondary School, Jikindaba Senior Secondary School and Ndaliso Senior Secondary School in Flagstaff, claiming that they were yet to receive their year’s supply of learner-teacher support materials (LTSM), including textbooks and other essentials such as calculators and instrument boxes for their Grade 12s, as well as books and other materials used by teachers. This was despite the fact that the schools, much like other schools across the Eastern Cape province, had placed their LTSM orders as early as July last year.
“When we inquire from district officials, they never give us satisfactory answers. Instead we get given the runaround,” said Khanyiso Mahlamvu, a head of department at Mhlanga Secondary School.
“For Grade 12s it’s worse. Some of these pupils come from poor homes and cannot afford to buy books for themselves.”
An irate Mahlamvu said that to make matters worse the same department that has “failed the pupils” would be clamouring for good matric results come the end of the year.
He said Grade 12s were now relying on hand-written notes, and sometimes teachers made photocopies of some of the study materials from old textbooks from previous years.
“We are preparing these pupils for varsity and they need to be able to study independently and not be spoon-fed.
“[Photocopying] is costly. We have to produce matric results and they [education department authorities] will not mention that they did not have textbooks for the whole year.
“Instead we will shoulder the blame for poor results and the person responsible for this mess will not face any music.”
Luyanda Mgaga, a teacher at Jikindaba, confirmed that they had not received stationery for matric pupils. He said they had to use some of the school budget for this, but funds were now drying up fast.
Mahlamvu said when schools were given their own budget for buying books there were never any delays. But ever since the introduction of the centralised system there had been glaring problems.
Education MEC Fundile Gade said they would investigate why the Flagstaff schools had not received their stationery for 2019. – Additional reporting by Ziyanda Zweni
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