Van Schaik Bookstore meets challenge to make textbooks accessible to more university students

At Van Schaik Bookstore selling books is our livelihood – that’s true, but it’s also our passion to bring books, and specifically academic books, within the reach of students who wouldn’t previously have the opportunity to buy academic books and resource materials because of distance and infrastructure limitations.

We started realizing our goal with the establishment of vanschaik.com, our online store, in 2008. We further acknowledged the challenges of our communities and opened stores that offer books and stationery to students within walking distance from their tertiary institutions. This was our reason for opening a store at the University of Venda in January 2011. This year we are continuing with our quest and opened a branch in Turfloop Plaza, Mankweng at the University of Limpopo and following soon after a branch in Oshakati at the University of Namibia.

“Supporting literacy and education is very important to us. Subsequently we have made it a priority to seek opportunities to expand into areas that seem challenging in terms of accessibility. There is such a great need for more than just an online store, especially since not everyone has access to computer technology,” says Stephan Erasmus, Managing Director of Van Schaik Bookstore.

The store in Turfloop Plaza, in University Street, Mankweng opened in June at special request of students who previously had to travel by taxi or walk for hours to buy their textbooks. The Turfloop Plaza store is a counter store and is managed by Shirley Maja. The trading hours are Monday – Friday: 08h00 – 17h00 and Saturdays: 08h00 – 13h00.

The Oshakati store is our second store at the University of Namibia. It officially opened its doors on August the 6^th and is situated at the Faculty of Education, Hifikepunye Pohamba Campus. The Branch Manager is Jacobus Gairiseb. The trading hours are Monday – Friday: 08h00 – 17h00 and Saturdays: 08h00 – 13h00.