Less than 5% of pupils receive exemptions from school fees, while the poor borrow R2,7-billion a year to spend on education, it emerged from Human Rights Commission (HRC) hearings this week.
The points are contained in a submission by the Education Law Project of Wits University’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals) at HRC hearings on the right to basic education, which the Constitution guarantees.
The inquiry follows what the HRC referred to as ”a constant flow of complaints relating to” this right, and was focused on the provision of education for learners aged seven to 15, or grade nine, whichever comes first.
Cals said the fact that only 5% of pupils received exemption from fees was ”startling considering the widespread poverty in South Africa”.
The failure derived from current legislation, but the proposed Education Laws Amendment Bill will ”also fail to facilitate access for poor learners”, the centre argued. ”The only system that can effectively facilitate access for poor learners, and one which accords with international law, is a system of free education.”
Cals was one of many organisations that referred to schooling costs as an impediment to basic education. Even where education policy seemed to promote the right to basic education, delivery frequently came under withering attack at the hearings.
”It is at the implementation phase where processes, strategies and tactics used are derailing the education transformation agenda,” argued the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu), which represents about 220 000 of the country’s 360 000 teachers.
In a joint submission, the Education Rights Project and the Anti- Privatisation Forum said the education system reproduces ”savage inequalities” found in the broader society. They said poverty and education could not be separated and that the ”no fee” schools contemplated in the Education Laws Amendment Bill were likely to become a ”dumping ground” for the poorest South Africans.
The HRC’s Kaya Zweni got the ball rolling on Wednesday by emphasising that the right to basic education is unqualified in the Constitution. He asked the Department of Education: ”Is education in South Africa responsive to the needs of our country?”
Drawing on about 20 submissions to be heard over the three days of the hearings, he summarised recurring complaints. These include worsening school management; infrastructural deficiencies, such as a lack of electricity and running water; the shortage of classrooms in rural areas; the fact that ”very few” could afford the full costs of schooling; and the impact of HIV/Aids on teachers and pupils.
Deputy Minister of Education Enver Surty said the department had no formal, prepared submission. He referred to the ”political realities” constituted by the dysfunctional system inherited from apartheid, saying these still affected education delivery.
On the meaning of basic education, he said the Constitutional Court and other courts had not yet defined this, and ”our understanding is that it must be progressively realised”.
In contrast, Cals argued that basic education was distinguished from other socio-economic rights in the Constitution, such as housing and health care, by being ”immediately enforceable”.
Providing a preview of battles still to be fought, Surty’s assertion that no child had ever been excluded from schooling was contradicted by personal testimonies in the ERP/APF presentation, when a number of pupils and community members gave examples of exclusions from schooling.
The department was due to return to the hearings in the final session on Friday afternoon. The HRC will publicise its findings and recommendations by the end of the year.