Abstract
The historical pattern of educational financing has been characterised by severe racial and regional inequalities in South Africa. The unequal and separate funding of public education under the apartheid regime created huge disparities between white and black schools and this had serious implications for the provision of quality education, learner performance and educational outcomes, especially in historically disadvantaged schools. After the democratic elections in 1994, the government faced enormous challenges in funding education. The education policies primarily aimed at redressing the inheritance of race-based inequality and to build a new and unified national system based on equity. Education receives a large share of the national budget and within the education budget increased spending is allocated to redress inequalities in school education. Using the qualitative research method, it was found that the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) has worked vigorously to improve funding and budgeting to redress the imbalances and to achieve quality education. In the past twenty years, it has achieved near universal access to education, reduced dropout rates across all grades in the secondary school phase, increased and sustained learner performance, especially at Grade 12 level, increased and equalised education spending, and made substantial progress in eliminating the infrastructure backlogs. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n23p500
Highlights
Introduction and Background to the ProblemThe historical pattern of educational financing has been characterised by severe racial and regional inequalities in South Africa
Three interviews were conducted with the Deputy Director-General, followed by two interviews with the Director, both located within the Education Planning and Information Management Unit of the Gauteng2 Department of Education (GDE) to acquire insight into budgetary trends and the allocation of funds to various programmes
The increase in this sector is attributed to the promulgation of the South African School Act (South Africa, 1996a) which gave guidelines to the transfer of subsidies to Independent schools based on the Norms and Standards for School Funding (NNSSF) policy for Independent schools as well as the increase in the number of learners and the registration of more independent schools
Summary
The unequal and separate funding of public education under the apartheid regime created huge disparities between white and black schools and this had serious implications for the provision of quality education, learner performance and educational outcomes in historically disadvantaged schools (Ladd & Fiske, 2008; Naicker, 1996). Typical indicators that revealed the inequality were: literacy levels; school completion rates; learner-teacher ratios; number, quality and qualifications of teachers; and availability of different types of resources. In the past twenty years, it has achieved near universal access to education, reduced dropout rates across all grades in the secondary school phase, increased and sustained learner performance, especially at Grade 12 level, increased and equalised education spending, and made substantial progress in eliminating the infrastructure backlogs.
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