By Angelique Serrao
Schools have been charged outrageous amounts for textbooks and stationery - as much as R13,87 for a pencil - and many are being given unwanted materials they have no choice but to accept.
The materials are delivered to the schools via the company EduSolutions, which received a contract from the Gauteng department of education (GDE) in 2002.
The GDE refused to give details about the contract between EduSolutions and the department or satisfactory answers to questions posed by The Star. But in answer to a question posed in the Gauteng Legislature earlier this year, Education MEC Angie Motshekga said R133-million in 2006/6, R295-million in 2006/7 and R155-million in 2007/8 was spent on conditional grant budgets. What proportion of this went to EduSolutions is not known.
Most of the schools in the province have to order through this company.
All Section 20 schools in the province - schools whose finances are fully handled by the GDE - have their pupil support materials delivered to them by EduSolutions. In addition to this, a conditional special grant has been given to Gauteng to resource schools with books for the new curriculum This amounts to R1 200 for every Grade 12 pupil and R960 for grades 4 to 6.
Most Section 21 schools - schools which handle their own finances - believed they would get this grant, but the GDE has retained control over the funding itself.
The Star is in possession of a memo which states that the allocation, used to procure seven textbooks, is being handled by the GDE and will not be going out to schools.
School principals have said that each year they have materials they don't need delivered to them - and some of the material is supplied at extortionate cost.
"I was told that EduSolutions charged R60 000 in admin fees for my school this year just to order textbooks," said one principal, who would not be named. "Last year I got over 100 recorders (worth over R7 000) and classical guitars (worth over R5 000) delivered to my school, but we don't teach music. Those were delivered instead of Grade 11 textbooks. When I complained, I was told I should give it back. I said no - not until I get the money that was meant as part of my allocation." The musical instruments are sitting unused in a storeroom.
The principal said that in past years they were able to see the prices of items, but this year the prices had been blotted out "to avoid complaints".
"We were being charged R120 for Casio calculators. I called Casio and was told they would charge me R100 if I ordered from them."
The Star has a file filled with photocopied pages explaining the new curriculum and a computer disk which was delivered to schools at R990 each. One school was charged R16 800 for 17 of these.
Another school received teaching writing workbooks which are filled with so many grammatical mistakes that schools can't use them in the classroom - a teacher pointed out that the 83-page book contained 170 errors.
Marks Ramasike, chairperson of the Association of School Governing Bodies in Soweto, asked why Section 21 schools weren't getting money from the special provincial grant.
"As far as I understand, all allocations should be given to school governing bodies. They shouldn't be giving the money to EduSolutions - we are supposed to buy the books ourselves."
The association was so upset about the grant money being taken out of schools' hands that they are planning to obtain a court interdict against the GDE.
The Gauteng provincial chairperson of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union, Sello Tshabalala, says they have had nonstop complaints about EduSolutions and demanded that schools no longer be obliged to use the company.
Moosa Ntinea, the chief financial officer of African Access International, the parent company of EduSolutions, said the company did not do the ordering or pricing.
He said the company's only responsibility was to act as middleman. They got order books to schools that had already been drawn up with prices by the GDE. Once they got the orders, they picked up the goods from suppliers, packaged them in their warehouse and then sent them to schools.