Funding inclusive education for equity and social justice in South African schools

Valeriya Burmistrova,Tsediso Michael Makoelle

doi:10.15700/saje.v40n4a2037

Abstract

The implementation of inclusive education in South African schools has resulted in more demands being placed on them to make provision for the inclusion of learners with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms. This has brought about substantial changes regarding school financing in order to cater for a diverse learner population. This generic qualitative study conducted through interviews with 9 secondary school principals from formerly disadvantaged and advantaged schools, as well as policy document analysis, investigated the current school financing practices for inclusive education in schools aimed at attaining equity and social justice. During this study data were analysed using inductive content analysis. The findings of the study suggest that although provision has been made in terms of the National Norms and Standards for School Funding policy, schools, especially those in previously disadvantaged communities, are not adequately and suitably resourced to implement inclusive education fully.

Highlights

After 1994, the newly elected democratic South African government of national unity, led by the African National Congress, had a huge task and responsibility to redress, transform and integrate several departments of education that were established as a result of the apartheid system into a single department
Current Funding Model The analysis from the study suggests that across all categories of schools, despite Department of Basic Education (DBE) efforts to ensure funding to all schools, especially disadvantaged schools, none of the principals who participated in the study thought funding was adequate to make a significant impact on inclusive education
One of the principals of the special schools indicated that their school funding was adequate but the fact that the schools have to act as resource centres meant that they have to incur unforeseen expenditure, which may have a negative impact on the quest to support surrounding schools

Summary

Introduction

Around 2000, the Department sought to analyse equity in the quality of education provided to different schools International programmes, such as Monitoring Learning Achievements, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and the Southern African Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality were applied in conjunction with the South African internal systemic evaluation (standardised testing). These revealed inadequacies regarding numeracy and reading skills among most learners. In 2003 the national Department of Education concluded that the non-capital (NC) funding needed for textbooks, stationery and other supplies was inadequate This led to more school quintiles being added to account for different poverty levels in various provinces (Mestry, 2014). 26 years after the advent of the new educational dispensation the question that remains is: To what extent has the South African education funding model been able to promote equity and social justice in the provision of quality inclusive education?

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion