Pretoria - About 20 000 schools will next year receive workbooks to support the new National Curriculum Statement (NCS) and to improve learner performance in literacy and numeracy.
Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said on Tuesday the department had developed a plan for the development of the workbooks for Grades 1 to 6 in order to ensure the development, piloting, printing and distribution of learner work books early in 2011.
The workbooks will be piloted in schools in 2010 and available for use in all schools in 2011.
"The project will provide resource support to 6.5 million learners and approximately 180 000 teachers in nearly 20 000 schools. This will replace work books in the hands of each and every learner in the system," Motshekga said, during a media briefing on Tuesday.
She said a team of curriculum experts, material developers and translators were currently developing the workbooks but intellectual property rights will remain with the department.
"The department will utilize capacity within the system including the Department of Basic Education and the Provincial Department of Education."
The development of workbooks follows a report by a Curriculum Review Committee in 2009, which recommended the increased and improved use of text books, a national catalogue of learning and teaching support materials and greater efficiency in the pricing and procurement of text books and learning and teaching support materials.
Early this year, Motshekga appointed a committee to look at improving the distribution and use of Learning and Teaching Support Materials (LTSM) in schools.