Education Minister Naledi Pandor clapped the loudest and wore the broadest smile among her counterparts on Wednesday as Finance Minister Trevor Manuel was once again in a generous mood towards her department.
The Department of Education will receive R121-billion for 2008/09, an increase of R16-million from last year’s R105-billion, because, Manuel said, “education is central to our objective of broadening opportunity and fighting poverty”.
The budget programme allocations are clearly skewed towards those areas in which the department and Pandor have acknowledged failure to deliver, such as rural schools.
Another key focus is quality improvements, which will benefit the most marginalised learners the most. Actions will focus on better nutrition for poor learners and the upgrading of buildings, in particular at farm and special schools.
Central to these quality initiatives will be improved access to early-childhood development (education for children up to nine years of age) — an intervention that benefits the poorest children the most.
The government aims to increase the number of five-year-old learners in publicly funded grade-R classes (the year prior to grade one). The number of sites will grow from 487Â 525 to 700Â 000, benefiting 600Â 000 more children.
For school infrastructure and equipment alone, the Department of Education will receive R18,8-billion to be spent over a three-year period.
Last year, the department published a National Education Information Management System (NEIMS) report, which indicated, among others, that one in four schools in the country — 7Â 000 out of 28Â 742 — was in need of maintenance and repair, while others did not have water, electricity, sanitation, access to computers, libraries or laboratories.
After escaping Manuel’s attention in the past years, inclusive education (education for the disabled) will also benefit this time. The government will upgrade and maintain the infrastructure of 135 special schools and provide a full complement of non-teaching staff, such as classroom assistants, as well as appropriate learning materials.
Moving to the tertiary sector, the Further Education and Training (FET) college band, identified as a primary driver of the country’s skills-development initiative, will receive more than R1-billion. This will be used, among others, to conclude the far-reaching capital rejuvenation of the country’s 50 public FET colleges and to run the national exam based on a new curriculum in 2008/09.
The higher education sector — entailing South Africa’s 23 public universities — will get the biggest chunk of R15-billion, up from R13,3-billion last year. Though never enough and in decline for at least a decade, this allocation should help universities increase research output and graduates, in the face of a worldwide trend of declining state subsidisation of universities. It is expected that by the end of the year the country’s universities will produce 133Â 000 graduates.
An injection of R1,7-billion to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme should reduce academic disruptions at institutions of higher learning, as an estimated 145Â 000 students will get funding this year. Last year, the scheme got R1,4-billion and by 2010 this will hit the R2,3-billion mark. However, the R1,7-billion includes R180-million for Funza Lushaka (initial teacher training) and FET college bursaries (R200-million).
Scepticism
Though welcoming the budget in general, some education analysts are sceptical about provinces’ capacity to deliver on disbursing the billions allocated to general education (schools and early-childhood development) on time, given their past history.
However, Manuel appealed at least twice in his speech to provinces to raise their vigilance and stick to priorities.
Russell Wildeman, education specialist at the Institute of Democracy of South Africa, says the provincial education departments have a history of failing to deliver on big capital projects due to lack of skilled personnel.
He says it is not uncommon to find two people responsible for driving a huge project for the entire and often vast province. “This amounts to setting them up for failure for it is practically impossible to implement these.”
He also says a lack of service agreements between the departments of public works and education contributes to the delays. Building new schools falls within the ambit of the former.
Comments Graeme Bloch, the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s education-policy analyst: “I’ve got no doubt that they have the ability to use the funding properly, so long as they have the political will to do so. [But] R18-billion is not a huge amount.”
He explains that improving infrastructure is essential, but “we need to ensure that teachers are delivering good services”.
Early-childhood development expert Elsie Calitz, MD of the Association for the Education and Care of Young Children, is also concerned about provinces’ ability to ring-fence money earmarked for grade R.
“I can shout all I can, but this budget is not going to make much of a difference,” she says, adding that more properly trained people are needed, as well as clear priorities on how the money will be spent by provinces.
Similarly, the FET sector has called on provincial governments to demonstrate their commitment to skills development.
JJ Mbana, chairperson of the South African College Principals’ Organisation and CEO of the Eastcape Midlands College in the Eastern Cape, says provinces have to demonstrate “morally and otherwise” that they are committed to skills development. “It is not right for provinces to say, ‘It is the national government’s responsibility — we are absolving ourselves.'”
Mbana says a worrying statement by Manuel was that colleges were recapitalised as if it was a “declaration of completeness” whereas colleges still needed investment.
However, he welcomes the finance minister’s announcement that colleges may benefit from the skills levy fund in the future. The bulging fund — built on contributions by employers — will reach about R9-billion by 2010/11.
If colleges benefit from the fund, they can broaden the range of training programmes they offer and subsidise students to enter these programmes.
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