Online textbook ordering system

The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) regards teaching and learning resources as essential to the effective running of our education system. To assist all learners to reach their full potential, the WCED has invested considerable funds to improve the way in which learners receive their textbooks each year.

Our online ordering system for school textbooks makes use of technology to ensure that textbooks are ordered and delivered on time, so that teachers and learners can focus on schoolwork, and not spend time waiting for the resources they need.

Some of the benefits of this system include:

• The ability to track orders from schools to monitor in real-time that sufficient textbooks are distributed to meet the main objective of getting text books to our learners on time.
• A transparent, online record of textbook ordering, with clear timeframes for schools to place their orders.
• Overcoming the inefficiencies of paper-based, manual systems for ordering textbooks that can result in lost orders and wasted time.

We’ve invested R605 million over 3 years (2011/12 to 2013/14) to provide 8 million textbooks and reading books to support the introduction of the CAPS curriculum. This investment provided schools with the basic stock of textbooks they needed for CAPS.

Schools now have to maintain these stocks by topping up as required, to meet increasing demand, and to replace damaged and missing textbooks. Schools have to implement a textbook retrieval system at the end of the year to maintain these stocks.

Schools have to retrieve about 95% of textbooks to ensure sustainable stocks, and our online textbook ordering system was launched as a tool for ordering additional textbooks for all learners.

How it works

Our online textbook ordering system is an easy-to-use way for teachers and principals to ensure their learners get access to the best textbooks on the market. This is how the process works:

1. Teacher or principal logs on to text book ordering system.
2. They select their school and the list of books required.
3. They then submit their order.
4. The department receives the school’s order list from the ordering system.
5. The department then logs the school’s textbook orders.
6. The department then sends the school’s order list to the contracted publishers.
7. The publishers source the books and arrange to have them delivered to the school.
8. The textbooks are delivered to the school.
9. A staff member at the school receives the books and signs the delivery receipt.
10. The textbooks are handed-out to learners and they’re able to start learning.
     

We’re committed to delivering quality education to all our learners across the province, and we constantly seek ways to make their learning experience more effective and Better Together.