About 300 000 children in the Eastern Cape do not have a chair to sit on or a desk to write at, despite two years of legal wrangling.
Now a dispute over the tender awarded to four furniture companies is further delaying the delivery of desks.
The Legal Resources Centre, acting for the University of Pretoria's Centre for Child Law, approached the Eastern Cape High Court yesterday and asked that a lawsuit over an "irregular" tender not be allowed to keep pupils from being provided with desks.
Rickshaw Trading lost out in the tender process. In March, it asked the court to block any provision of desks and chairs until a review of the tender was completed.
Legal Resources Centre attorney Cameron McConnachie said the department had conceded the tender process was irregular. But he said the centre did not want desks sitting in warehouses.
It asked the court yesterday for furniture that had already been ordered and paid for be provided to schools.
The centre has won 60000 desks for pupils since 2012.
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