Education Policy in South Africa
3.6 Legislative Reforms: Fee Exemptions and the No-fee Schools Policy
Article 28 (1) (a) of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (1948) was ratified by South Africa. It stipulates that states should provide education that is free and compulsory at least at the primary school level. The Article goes further to say that secondary education should be made accessible and available to learners.
States should take steps to offer free education to secondary school learners who cannot afford schooling (Veriava, 2005: 16).
Improving access to education was highlighted in Section 5 of SASA. This section stipulates that schools must admit learners from all races without unfairly discriminating on any grounds. This aim was undermined by the fact that some parents and caregivers were unable to send their children to school because they could not afford the school fees.
A special report on education done by the Sunday Times (8 May 2007) illustrated the current range of school fees charged. The findings of that report are reflected in Table 3.3.
Table 3.4: Comparison of Fees in South African Schools
Type of School
Private
Former Model C Public
Fees in Rands
80,000 to 93,000 7,000 to 10,000
120 to 330
Additional costs for uniforms and textbooks
in Rands (R) 2,500
500 (Uniforms only) 200 (Uniforms only)
Source: Sunday Times, 8 May 2007
So, although access to education is theoretically equal, not all eligible children were attending school. To remedy this, the Department of Education (DoE), promulgated a school fee exemption policy, namely the Exemption of Parents from the Payment of School Fees (2006) set out a means test for granting partial and full exemptions to parents who cannot afford school fees. Parents are granted a full exemption from the payment of school fees if the combined income is less than 10% of the school fees per learner. If the combined income is between 10% and 30% of the school fees, parents can be granted a partial exemption of school fees. Veriava (2005, 13) states that the DoE was unable to give effect to this exemption policy. As a result access to schooling was still limited by school fees. Roithmayr (cited in Veriava, 2005:14) states that one of the reasons for the failure of the exemption policy was that many parents who were eligible for the exemption did not apply for it, as the application process was complicated and time consuming. In addition some parents were too embarrassed to apply for exemptions.
In 2002 the former Minister of Education, Professor Kader Asmal, ordered a review of all legislation that governed school funding. The result of this review was the Plan of Action: Improving Access to Free and Quality Education for All, which was
published in 2003 (Veriava, 2005: 11). This plan involved facilitating access to school by, among other things, the standardisation of the cost of books and uniforms. The plan suggested that fees be abolished in the poorest quintiles. The plan also suggested that the state should set a benchmark for adequate school funding.
The Education Laws Amendment Bill promulgated in 2004, amended Sections 35 and 39 of S AS A. The amendment of Section 35 of S AS A stipulates that:
The Minister [of Education] must determine national quintiles and national norms and standards for school funding after consultation with the Council of Education Ministers
According to this policy, all schools in South Africa are placed into 5 categories (or quintiles) according to their relative wealth. Three factors are taken into consideration when assessing the wealth of schools. First is the location of the school. This refers to whether the school is located in an urban or rural area. The second criterion is the wealth of the community in which the school is located. This is measured by household incomes, the number of dependants in the households and by the level of education within each household. The last criterion is the physical condition of the school. This is determined by teacher to student ratio and the condition of infrastructure on and around the school (National Norms and Standards for School Funding, 2004). Table 3.5 illustrates the distribution of schools per quintile according to province.
Table 3.5: Distribution of National Income Quintiles at Provincial Level (%)
Province E. Cape Free State Gauteng KZN Limpopo Mpumalanga N. Cape North West W. Cape South Africa
National Quintiles 1 (poorest)
34 33 7 19 27 14 18 20 4 20
2 26 20 11 22 25 23 17 19 10 20
3 18 16 18 22 22 25 21 23 16 20
4 10 14 28 21 15 21 20 23 29 20
5 (richest) 11 18 35 16 10 17 23 15 40 20
Source: DoE, 2003 cited in Wildeman and Mbebetho, 2005: 20
These quintiles are determined nationally. KZN has 21% (or approximately 1,346) of the no-fee schools in the country.
The amendment to Section 39 (b) now states that:
77*e Minister [of Education] must by notice in the Government Gazette annually determine the national quintile for public school or part of such quintiles which must be used by the Member of the Executive Council to identify schools that may not charge school fees.
Schools that fall into quintiles 1 and 2 (or the poorest 40%) are defined no-fee schools. This is a shift from provincially determined quintile to nationally determined
quintiles. In these schools no fees in any form may be charged. Fees are any admission, administration or extra-curricular costs to parents.
In no-fee schools the Department of Education will increase the per capita expenditure from approximately R527 to R703. Wealthier schools in quintiles 4 and 5 will receive approximately R117 per pupil (Veriava, 2005: 10). These respective policy developments and decisions are regularly referred to as the no-fee schools policy.
The no-fee schools policy was introduced in 2006 (Department of Education, 2006).
This policy follows the National Department of Education's review of school fees in 2003 which raised the issue of parents not being able to pay school fees (Department of Education, 2006) .The objective of this policy is to bring financial relief to parents of school-going children who cannot afford to pay school fees, thereby being denied access to schools.
In implementing the no-fee schools policy, the DoE attempted to facilitate the access to education by eliminating the barrier of fees. In this way the policy would act as a poverty alleviation mechanism, and would make education accessible to the poor.