top of page

Textbooks Matter

Textbooks Matter

In Limpopo province of South Africa, many school children do not have access to a full quota of textbooks. The government promised to provide them but 4 years later still has not delivered.

Public interest law firm Section27 took the South African government to court in November 2015 to demand that they provide a full quota of textbooks for each learner.


As part of the advocacy campaign surrounding this court hearing, together with the writer Nomatter Ndebele, we travelled to Limpopo to find and photograph the school kids who were left without the books that they needed. What he found was a large group of children with grand aspirations for the future but without the tools that they needed to get through school.


The portraits were taken in the place where each learner studies. Be it home, a relatives house or the school room that they return to every evening to find some space to work.

Thom Pierce Studios

© Thom Pierce 2025

bottom of page