KEY TRENDS IN EDUCATION SPEND
KEY TRENDS IN EDUCATION SPEND
SOCIAL GRANTS
The Social Assistance Act 18, provides for all the social grants including the three grants targeted at children: child support grant, fos- ter care grant and the care dependency grant. Social grants are the state’s primary poverty alleviation programme and have resulted in significant positive impacts on children’s health, nutrition and education. The budget for social assistance falls within the National Department of Social Development.
HUNGER ALLEVIATION
Table 8 provides the estimates for the nutrition sub-programme. When the es- timates for provinces are combined, this sub-programme account for less than 1% of the programme total for all years ex- amined. This is perhaps less serious than it seems to the extent that the school feed- ing scheme now falls with the Education rather than the Health sector. The subpro- gram experienced real growth of 6,4% in 2010/11, but this is followed by a decrease of -1,5% in 2011/12 and then an increase of 2,0% in 2012/13.
Table 10 gives the programme breakdown for the national department. The main ap- propriation for 2009/10 is not given be- cause when that budget was tabled there was a single national Department of Educa- tion. It is therefore difficult to find the com- parable estimates for some programmes.
The first category is important, given the need to improve the quality of education. However, it must be noted that many might argue that at this point less rather than more curriculum development is needed so that educators and learners can start fo- cusing on what is there already rather than coping with yet more changes.
The recent announcement of the Minister of Basic Education about the shift from the earlier focus on outcomes-based education and related changes to the curriculum and there is hope that the emphasis will now
be on supporting teachers to deliver on the newly agreed approach.
The social responsibility programme is de- scribed as having the purpose of develop- ing policies and programmes to increase the participation of learners in schools and improve the quality of learning in schools.
It is not clear that the money is being used effectively. It is widely acknowledged that the quality of public education in South Africa is poor. The allocations for Funza Lushaka, curriculum development, founda- tions for learning and Dinaledi might be expected to help in this respect. What are sorely needed are initiatives that provide support to teachers of all subjects.
PROVINCIAL DEPARTMENTS OF EDUCATION
The nine provincial departments have simi- lar structures for their budgets. This facili- tates comparison across provinces as well as facilitating the extraction of a national picture of budgeting and provision.
In addition to the money that the provinces receive from National Treasury via the eq- uitable share, the provincial education de- partments receive a number of conditional grants from the national department of Education. In addition they receive, via the provincial treasuries, a portion of the pro- vincial infrastructure conditional grant that comes from National Treasury.
Table 12 shows the share of the total budget allocated to each programme for the nine provinces combined. The shares remain more or less constant over the four years shown. Public ordinary school education clearly dominates the budgets, accounting for 82% or more of the total. Further Education and Training, which ac- counts for 3% of the total, is due to be transferred to the Department of Higher Education and Training. For this interim year, the allocation takes the form of a
TABLE 8: Conditional grants of the national departments of education (Rm) 2009/10
Dinaledi schools
HIV and Aids (life skills education) National school nutrition programme Technical secondary schools recapitalisation Higher Education and Training
Further education and training colleges – 1 81
2 395 – –
3 168
TABLE 9: Budgetary share of programmes within provincial education budgets 2009/10
MAIN Administration
Public ordinary school education Independent school subsidies Public special school education Further education and training Adult basic education and training Early childhood development Auxiliary and associated services Total
conditional grant from National Treasury to each of the provinces.
NO-FEE SCHOOL POLICY
The no-fee school policy is among the most important initiatives in promoting enrolment and attendance of poor learners. The policy was introduced in 2007, and targeted at schools in quintiles 1 and 2 i.e. the schools that available data suggested were attended predominantly by learners from the poorest 40% of households in the country.
In 2009/10, government expected prov- inces to spend R10,9 bn on no-fee schools, and benefit 5,3 million learners at 14 029 schools (National Treasury, 2009: 37). The policy provides for graded allocations to schools by provinces, with allocations in- creasing the lower the quintile.
APPROP. 7%
82% 1% 3% 3% 1% 2% 2%
100%
ADJUSTED APPROP.
7%
83% 1% 3% 3% 1% 1% 2%
100%
REVISED ESTIMATE
7%
83% 1% 3% 2% 1% 1% 2%
100%
For example, in 2009 the target allocation per learner per year for quintile 1 schools was R807 while it was R740 for quintile 2 schools. National Treasury notes challenges in implementing the policy, including delays in transferring allocations to schools. To ad- dress this challenge, norms and standards were changed so as to state the date by which allocations should reach schools.
The Provincial Budgets and Expenditure Review
(National Treasury, 2009: 37)
states that the no-fee policy would be ex- tended to quintile 3 schools over the 2009 MTEF period. Some of the provincial nar- ratives suggest that extension happened in 2009/10. However, some of these same provinces then have extension as a planned activity for 2010/11. This suggests that im- plementation was partial in 2009/10.
One of the criticisms of the no-fee policy has been the way in which schools are
6%
82% 1% 3% 3% 1% 2% 2%
100%
2010/11 –
188
3 663 80 –
3 773
2011/12 70
199
4 579 200 –
3 972
2012/13
100 209
4 928 210 –
4 169
2010/11
2011/12
MEDIUM-TERM ESTIMATE 6%
82% 1% 3% 3% 1% 2% 2%
100%
2012/13 6%
82% 1% 3% 3% 1% 2% 2%
100%
assigned to quintiles. Gauteng is the only province that refers to this problem in not- ing that nine quintile 5 and 44 quintile 4 schools were re-ranked during 2009/10 so that they could qualify for no-fee status.
KwaZulu-Natal notes explicitly that the
increased number of no-fee schools in 2009/10 included farm schools. It
is not
clear why the latter are treated as an ex- ception that requires reporting. KwaZulu- Natal notes as a problem that the norms and standards do not currently provide for Grade R, even where this is provided within a no-fee school.
The no-fee policy provides for no fees to be paid by any child attending that school. However, there are also poor children who attend other schools that do charge fees. For equitable access, these children (or their caregivers) need to be exempted from paying all or part of the fees applicable
www.ed.org.za
www.ed.org.za
CHAPTER 2 | GOVERNANCE AND FINANCE
49
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123