{"id":461138,"date":"2021-01-15T09:22:53","date_gmt":"2021-01-15T07:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=461138"},"modified":"2021-01-15T09:29:09","modified_gmt":"2021-01-15T07:29:09","slug":"updated-school-uniform-guidelines-for-south-africa-including-face-masks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/461138\/updated-school-uniform-guidelines-for-south-africa-including-face-masks\/","title":{"rendered":"Updated school uniform guidelines for South Africa &#8211; including face masks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Competition Commission has published a new circular for schools and parents on the procurement guidelines for school uniforms in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>The commission said that the circular is aimed at curbing anti-competitive procurement practices at schools. This has been a hot topic at schools historically, with parents forced to purchase uniforms from only a few select suppliers.<\/p>\n<p>However, the commission said that parents and students should also take note of the circular in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the era of Covid-19, the commission\u2019s scope has expanded to other learning-related goods and services which schools require learners to purchase, including facemasks, hand sanitizers, technological gadgets for e-learning purposes and other items,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is important that schools understand that the same principles that are set out to ensure pro-competitive procurement applies equally to the procurement of all other learning-related goods such as textbooks, stationery etc.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The guidelines include the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Schools must not compel parents to purchase new\/additional school uniform items for the purposes of clothes-rotation during the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, schools should consider alternative interventions including permitting the wearing of civilian clothing by learners, on some days;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>School uniform should be as generic as possible such that it is obtainable from more than one supplier;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Exclusivity should be limited to items that the schools regards as necessary to obtain from pre-selected suppliers;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Schools should follow a competitive bidding process when appointing suppliers for school uniform and learning-related items;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Supplier agreements should be of limited duration and not for excessively long periods.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The commission has further <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/406165\/schools-should-not-force-parents-to-procure-branded-masks-comp-commission\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">clarified<\/a><\/strong> that schools should not force parents to procure branded masks or to purchase sanitisers from particular vendors.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the instance where there is non-compliance with the Competition Act and the School Uniformguidelines, the commission will take appropriate action in terms of its enabling statutes, particularly as bringing down the cost of learning-related items remains the priority,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/459994\/the-most-expensive-schools-in-south-africa-in-2021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The most expensive schools in South Africa in 2021<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Competition Commission has published a new circular for schools and parents on the procurement guidelines for South African school uniforms in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":461218,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-461138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461138"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":461160,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461138\/revisions\/461160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}