Learning material supply chain practices at public schools in Limpopo

M.Com. (Business Management)More than fifteen years have gone by since the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa (SA) in 1994. From 1994, it became critical for every institution of the government to work towards the transformation of the public sector. The ultimate aim of this transformation has been to bring about a better life for all. However, the pace at which improvement in the general life of people from the historically disadvantaged communities is moving slowly. The best weapon that can be employed to ensure that life is improved is through the provision of quality education. There is a serious need for an improvement in the educational system of our country which is counted among the lowest in the world in terms of literacy and mathematics. This situation is continuing to prevail despite the fact that South Africa has some of the best infrastructure in the world. The researcher has undertaken this study with the assumption that the Supply Chain Management (SCM) plays a critical role in the improvement of service delivery and cost reduction as well as inventory reduction. Initially, the SCM was applied in the private sector only where the focus is on profitability. However, for the past few years, the SCM has been overlapping into the public sector. The SA government is amongst the first to adopt SCM as a tool to improve service delivery and to reduce costs. The focus of the SCM in the SA public sector is efficiency, effectiveness and the economic use of resources in the context of development and equity. There are many potential benefits that can be gained in the public sector when SCM is implemented effectively. These benefits include improved service delivery, inventory reduction and cost reduction. The Department of Basic Education (DoBE) is investing heavily towards the improvement of the standard of education in the country. Despite this, there are still learners who attend schools without all the necessary textbooks, the basic source of information for learning. The shortage of books prevails even in Limpopo Province which is one of the poorest provinces in SA. As a poor province, learners in Limpopo do not have easy access to other sources of information such as the internet and only very few schools in Limpopo Province have libraries. These learners rely on the textbooks to get information and therefore the failure to provide adequate textbooks to these learners leaves them with nothing to depend on for their studies. Consequently, their performance at schools is affected to the point that they may fail at the end of the school year