More children are attending and finishing school but more are vulnerable due to poverty and the death of at least one parent, said an Education Department report released on Monday.
”In 2003 nearly 97% of seven to 15-year-olds [the compulsory school age] attended an educational institution,” the department said of the first report from its new monitoring and evaluation unit.
The report is based on household and labour force surveys and censuses between 1995 and 2003.
”The report deals first with living conditions, then with demographic indicators of education, followed by the interaction between education and labour market outcomes,” said unit director Hersheela Narsee.
The report found that the demand for high school and higher education institutions would probably grow strongly while demand for primary schools would grow more slowly, as the population growth rate of 16 to 18-year-olds was almost double that of the overall population, particularly in Gauteng, the Western Cape, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.
”Net migration to Gauteng and the Western Cape raised increased child populations by 76 000 and 46 000 respectively, while Limpopo and the Eastern Cape experienced net out-migration of 20 000 and 46 000 children respectively,” said the department.
”The number of vulnerable children has grown sharply,” found the report.
”The Eastern Cape, North West and Limpopo, in particular, are characterised by low access rates to important household services, lower educational attainment, higher dependency ratios and unemployment rates, low incomes, and higher dependence on social grants. All of these factors, as well as others, combine to create conditions in which the progress of learners through the education system is hampered.”
More children have lost one or both parents.
”The number of single orphans rose by almost half a million to just over two million between 1995 and 2003, while the number of double orphans increased by approximately 150 000 to 371 000 over the same period.”
Saying that feeding schemes were ”crucial”, the report said in 1999, school meals reached six in 10 pupils in the poorest two household sectors. They also reached ”significant numbers” of pupils from two best-off sectors.
The largest increase in access to feeding schemes between 1995 and 1999 was not in the poorest sector but in the second and third poorest sectors.
The report also showed that more children were finishing school.
”In 2003, around 30% of the population over 25 years of age had completed grade 12, compared to 25,6% in 1995.”
The report said adult illiteracy was declining, resulting in a decline in educational inequality.
”While inequality for the adult population over 25 years as a whole is relatively high, it is lower amongst 25 to 64 year olds and significantly lower amongst 25 to 34 year olds.”
The two biggest problems for all school children in 2003 were a lack of books and the cost of school fees, although in 2001, nine in 10 pupils paid less than R500 a year in fees.
In 2003, lack of money for fees was the main reason for not attending school, followed by complaints that education was useless or uninteresting. One in 10 girls not at school were absent due to pregnancy.
Just 4% were not at school because they had failed exams. – Sapa