Shakes" Matyesini explores how the lack of textbooks is affecting his, and others, education. This article originally appeared in the June 2010 edition of The Equalizer.

By Olwethu 'Shakes' Matysini

My name is Olwethu Matyesini and I am a Grade 12 learner at Chris Hani Senior Secondary School in Makhaza, Khayelitsha. I am the first person in my family to reach Matric, and there are high expectations that I will pass this year well and go on to study at university. Next year, I want to study for a degree in Language and Communications at UCT. This is my dream, and my fellow learners have big dreams too.

However, it is four months into Matric and my fellow learners and I are faced with a huge problem: we don’t have textbooks. I, for example, study seven subjects at school and have access to textbooks for only two of those subjects, isiXhosa and Life Orientation. For isiXhosa I have to share the three prescribed textbooks with another learner, while for Life Orientation I have my own textbook.  For Maths, English, Physical Science, Life Science and Music, I have no access whatsoever to a textbook. This means that I cannot do homework for these subjects, and that I only have my class-notes from which to study for them.

 My Physics teacher sometimes lends me her own textbook. Even though she trusts me, she gets very nervous when she does this because she is scared that I might lose her textbook. 

Having to share a textbook is also not a good thing. Last term, the person that I share my Xhosa textbooks with lost one of them, a novel called Ukhozi Olumaphiko, written by Ncedile Sawule. Unfortunately for me, my isiXhosa control test for the term was on Ukhozi Olumaphiko. Remember, these are the marks that will determine my future.