Schools urged to comply with uniform guidelines
The Competition Commission has urged schools to comply with school uniform guidelines that are "aimed at curbing anti-competitive behaviour".
The commission's spokesperson, Sipho Ngwema, says a probe into anti-competitive behaviour at schools was concluded early last year which established that a number of schools still has exclusive contracts with one supplier.
"These contracts didn't go through a competitive and transparent bidding process. Given the number of schools and other considerations, it was felt that schools must focus on the primary function, which is to educate. The commission was reluctant to drag these schools through protracted litigation process and distract them from their main function."
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Ngwema says the commission has been in talks with private schools, suppliers, governing bodies, and the government.
"We agreed on the implementation of school uniform guidelines issued by the government.
"The guidelines state that school uniform should be as generic as possible such that it is obtainable from as many suppliers possible, exclusivity should be limited to items that the schools regards as necessary to obtain from pre- selected suppliers (for example badges), schools should follow a competitive bidding process when appointing suppliers, schools should appoint more than one supplier in order to give parents more options and the concluded agreements should be of limited duration."
The commission has since signed a memorandum of understanding with the Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (FEDSAS) which aims to ensure that schools comply with the guidelines.