Cape Town - With schools due to re-open in the era of Covid-19, the Competition Commission says its scope has expanded to other learning-related goods and services including face-masks and technological gadgets for e-learning.
Competition Commission spokesperson Siyabulela Makunga urged schools and parents to observe the circular on “procurement of school uniform and other learning-related goods and services” jointly published by the commission and the Department of Basic Education in November.
“The circular is aimed at curbing anti-competitive procurement practices at schools,” Makunga said.
The guidelines for pro-competitive school procurement state that the school uniforms should be as generic as possible to be obtained from more than one supplier and schools should follow a competitive bidding process when appointing suppliers and supplier agreements should be of limited duration.
The guidelines state schools must not compel parents to purchase new/additional school uniform items for the purposes of clothes-rotation during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Schools should consider alternative interventions including permitting the wearing of civilian clothing by learners on some days.
There have been recent complaints related to the procurement of other learning-related goods and services.
“With the outbreak of Covid-19, the commission’s scope has expanded to other learning-related goods and services which schools require learners to purchase, including face masks, hand sanitisers, technological gadgets for e-learning purposes and other items,” Makunga said.
“The governing body associations that represent public schools have, during 2020, begun discussions on developing Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) with the Commission. The Commission is excited about these partnerships and believes that … it will be able to raise awareness and monitor compliance to competitive procurement practices by schools,” Makunga said.
Meanwhile, a recent Gumtree poll says that they expect to spend anywhere between R100 and R10 000 on school essentials for this school year.
Parents were bracing themselves to pay for school essentials including stationery, sports kit and other equipment, according to the Gumtree survey.
The majority of parents at 41% expect to pay up to R1 000 for each child’s school essentials, 36% will pay between R1 000 and R5 000, nearly 10% expect to cough up between R5 000 and R10 000, and 13% will spend over R10 000.
Gumtree South Africa’s Estelle Nagel said: “Parents question whether their children really do need six large glue sticks in one year, at a cost of nearly R200 alone, or if there’s a significant difference between a pen that costs R6 and one that costs R48 – when both can get lost just as easily.”
Cape Times