The National Teachers' Union has lashed out at a "sudden" education department move, which, it says, could see thousands of schoolchildren without textbooks next year.
The union accused the department of failing to pay allotments to schools, which could result in a book shortage in 2018.
"The established funding norms and standards are based on the total number of registered learners in a school, which worked very well in the past. The department has unilaterally adopted its own thumbsucked policy which has caused a crisis situation," Natu said.
The funding model has changed to one in which only registered pupils with valid identity documents will be funded by the department.
"In many respects, this move severely frustrated and disturbed the proper functioning of school programmes in the province.
"Most schools received their first complete basic allocations at the end of August, after eight months of suffering and anguish.
"Principals found themselves running their schools from their own pockets and some survived by borrowing money from loan sharks."
Education department spokesman Kwazi Mthethwa said that the union's concerns would not be disregarded.
"Natu is one of our social partners. We have a good working relationship with them and we are always going to listen to their concerns because they represent our teachers," he said.
"It is our duty to listen to them, but we hope that these issues can be raised directly with us instead of running to the media."
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