It has also warned parents against misleading labelling on products that masquerade as leather when in fact they are imitations, particularly shoe products that carry 'bonded leather' labels. 'Bonded leather' does not have the same quality level as real leather and products are unlikely to last as long as real leather items. Legislation is being introduced this year to combat the problem but not before the current rush to get school clothes and shoes.
Merchandise director Sean Cardinaal says, "We think it's important that people understand what they are buying. Bonded leather is made up of leather fibres and is a by-product of the leather tanning industry, it looks like leather but its resilience, comfort and health properties are not the same as genuine leather. Parents should check the labels and be sure of what they are buying or they will be disappointed. The new legislation will help protect consumers but it will be a few months before this legislation can be enforced.
"The whole world is in turmoil over escalating cotton and polyester prices and while our suppliers are sourcing raw materials from other parts of the world, the shortage of supply has forced the prices to rise. We are just pleased that we were able to hold our prices on cotton and polyester goods for this next 'back-to-school' period."
More Pep academies
As the organisation's flagship corporate social investment initiative, the Student Prince Academy helps provide the building blocks of education literacy and numeracy to Grade 4 learners, worth about R600 000 per year.
Late last year, the company ran a competition to give one Soweto school an academy. Such was the quality of schools that applied that it decided to give the prize to two schools - Freedom Primary School and Dikgabane Primary School.
This year it will launch two academies in Bloemfontein schools - Matal Primary School and Kgato Primary School, who join the other five academies around the country to bring the number of academies to nine.
The academies give around 1 485 children after school core competence training in literacy, numeracy and life skills on three afternoons a week. While the children are being given this supplementary education, they kept off the street and given a meal in a safe environment. The initiative has been fully endorsed by the Department of Education. Tests show that learners enrolled in the Student Prince Academies programme have improved numeracy scores by an average of 20 and literacy scores by an average of 29 percentage points.
