One provincial Education Department spending more than half a billion rand on printing matric exam question papers has shocked members of Parliament.
They accused some of the provincial Education departments of collapsing their printing facilities to outsource this duty to private companies.
The Select Committee on Education, Science and Creative Industries Chairperson, Makhi Feni, raised the concern after the committee heard this week that the Gauteng Education Department, which had a three-year contract to print exam papers for its North West counterpart, had since outsourced its exam paper printing.
After the end of its Gauteng contract, the North West Education Department signed a more than R500 million five-year contract with a private company, which was not named.
“I am not supporting that when you are having the service, you collapse the service and you run to the private service provider,” Feni said.
This would mean that the North West Education Department was now spending over R100 million a year on a private printing company.
Gauteng Education Department spokesperson, Steve Mabona, declined to respond to questions sent to him regarding his province outsourcing its exam printing service.
The deputy director-general of the North West Education Department, responsible for exam papers, informed the committee that in 2009, the department secured printing machines from Bytes Solutions and Altron Solutions; however, their contracts were not renewed in 2019.
The province spent more than R69 million printing with the Government Printing Works (GPW) between 2019 and 2022, and also signed for R27 million to print with the Gauteng Education Department between 2023 and 2024.
The latest contract with a private company, which started at the beginning of the 2024/2025 financial year and would end in 2029, contained extra security, transport, and storage features for the papers, which were available in the previous contracts.
The Gauteng and North West departments had since joined the Eastern Cape in outsourcing the printing of their exam papers, while the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, and Western Cape departments still print in-house. Only Limpopo used the GPW facility.
Basic Education Chief Director, responsible for the National Assessment and Public Examinations, Rufus Poliah, told the committee in a virtual meeting held on Tuesday that the law allowed the provinces to handle the printing of their exams, but that should be transparent and cost-effective.
The exam papers were printed for the May/June examination for candidates who want to improve their results and adult candidates, and also for the main matric exams in October and November.
Poliah said departments have three options, which are for those who print in-house but do not have the facilities to hire printing machines, outsource, and use central government facilities.
He said those who insource use their staff for the printing job, while those who outsource are dependent on a private company to carry out the whole process, including providing the safety and distribution of the papers, while being monitored by Education officials.
He said the GPW was responsible for the printing of exam papers for the Department of Higher Education and Training’s Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges.
Feni expressed concern about the department spending money on private companies when the state has its printing facilities.
He said insourcing would bear no extra expenditure for the safety of the papers, as they would have to be protected by the police.
Feni stated that there were instances where learners would be out of transport because there was no money for that, while the money is being given away to private companies.
“They are giving away their responsibilities under the excuse that the facilities were not giving them satisfactory results. Why are you not enhancing your existing capacity to achieve your desired outcome?
“Why don’t you buy your equipment? Are you telling me that the department is no longer having any technicians who can operate these particular works that you have been running, rather than going for private providers?” asked Feni.
“We must always take into cognisance the serious infrastructure backlog that provinces like the North West are confronted with.
“How does one balance the two, the infrastructure backlogs and the expenditure on this private company for printing?” said Feni.
He said there was nothing wrong with outsourcing the work if the government lacks the technical ability or skills, “but outsourcing to private companies should be necessary and there ought to be plans for transfer of skills.”
“We will not tire of making the call to the enhancement of internal capacity within departments.
“If we continue along this line, are we doing away with the functions of the state?” he said.
Committee member Patrick Sibande called on the government to centralise the printing of exam papers because, for the provincial departments, doing this separately was a legacy of apartheid.
“Why is it not possible to centralise all the work? Let us move away from the mentality of working in silos like in the former homelands where KwaNgwane would do their own so as KwaNdebele.
“Now it is a new dispensation, but we are still operating with the same system,” said Sibande.
When contacted for comment, Basic Education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga did not respond to questions sent to him.
