Hon Chairperson, Needu has certainly not been assigned to the Eastern Cape. What I can say to you is that there are task teams made up of the departments that I referred to earlier, that have a particular responsibility to look at the six areas of intervention.
If, on the other hand, Needu is of the view that it would like to assess the situation, look at the context and make some recommendations, we are certainly not going to prevent it from doing so. Any support or help that we can have to assist in enhancing quality education will be most welcome. Certainly from where I'm standing I would not commit Needu to that particular task, but it might well be so that it would want to find out what it is that makes the challenges in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo arise as they are doing right now. I would not say that it is not going to happen; it might very well.
Particulars regarding timeous distribution of textbooks to schools
57. Ms D Z Rantho (ANC) asked the Minister of Basic Education:
(1) Whether her department has set a timeline and/or deadline for the distribution of textbooks to schools; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details; (2) whether her department keeps a record of the number of schools which have received their textbooks late in each province; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, how many (a) schools and (b) provinces were affected by this in 2012;
(3) whether her department has any plans in place to ensure that schools receive textbooks on time; if not, why not; if so, what plans? CO301E