Mpumalanga’s education department has not bought charts, dictionaries and readers for pupils in grades 4-9 in the past five years because of budgetary constraints.
And, it has no money to provide library books for newly-built libraries, or to fully equip newly-built laboratories.
The department says dictionaries and readers are regarded as “non-core LTSM [learning-teaching support material]”, while the textbook shortages varied from school to school.
