Private schools are often more the subject of myth than the gruelling reality of schooling. One stereotypical image of private schools is of boys in peaked caps playing cricket on fields surrounded by enormous oaks against the backdrop of a beautiful Victorian building. It is picturesque but doesnt capture the spectrum of private or independent schools as they are defined in the South African Schools Act.
In an attempt to shake off the typecast of independent schools as white, elitist institutions, advocates of private schooling argue that the sector has seen fundamental change over the past 15 years to reflect increasingly a broader make-up of South African society.
But while the sector has certainly undergone change, this should not be exaggerated. The number of independent schools has grown moderately (and even considerably in Gauteng and the Western Cape), but remains relatively small. In 1992, there were just 392 independent schools nationally, increasing to 1 005 schools in 2003 representing 3,7% of schools in the country and just 2,4% of total learner enrolment (according to national Department of Education statistics).
Neither has the racial profile of independent schools changed significantly in the past decade. Department of Education statistics in 1992 show that whites made up 46% of enrolments, Africans 43%, coloureds 6% and Indians 4%. A survey conducted in 2002 by the Wits Education Policy Unit (EPU), the Centre for Education Policy Development (CEPD) and the Centre for International Education at Sussex University revealed that white learners continued to make up the greatest proportion of enrolment (45%).
The EPU/CEPD/Sussex survey also found that the number of independent schools serving poor learners (those charging below R1 000 a year) was negligible (4% of schools). Although the survey had a bias to top-end schools, it appears that independent schools generally serve an urban middle class. Most schools charged between R1 000 and R5 999 a year. Remarkably, 33% of schools with fees of more than R20 000 a year were established within the past 10 years. The market for elite schools clearly grew in the 1990s.
The biggest shift in private schools over the past 15 years has been in the growth of faith-based schools, mainly attached to charismatic Christian churches. In the EPU/CEPD/Sussex survey, 55% of independent schools were affiliated to Christian churches (not including Catholic, Anglican or Methodist).
Despite some growth, the independent schooling sector is small by international standards and the shift in racial and socio-economic profile has not been as significant as claimed by the sectors advocates. The question then is why independent schooling did not grow rapidly in the past decade. Part of the explanation must lie in the partial privatisation of public-school funding, so that school governing bodies now have authority to charge school fees that parents would be compelled to pay. Formerly model-C schools that charge fairly high fees have been able to maintain their infrastructure and hire additional teachers, maintaining quality education and preventing a flood of middle-class learners out of the public schooling sector.
But probably the biggest case for the relatively modest growth of independent schools is the availability of public schooling. In South Africa, the public schooling system has fairly good coverage. The gross enrolment figure for 2003 was 94%.
In addition, the extent of poverty may explain why independent schools have not burgeoned in the rural provinces with the largest numbers of out-of-school youth. Independent schools are unlikely to provide access to out-of-school youth because poverty is as an important reason for their exclusion from public schools.
Veerle Dieltiens is a researcher at the Wits Education Policy Unit