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Balancing Public and Private Resources for Basic Education: School Fees in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Literature › Works

Edward B. Fiske; Helen F. Ladd (2003). Balancing Public and Private Resources for Basic Education: School Fees in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University, Working Papers Series SAN03-03 (prepared for HSRC volume Education and Social Change in South Africa). Duke University, Sanford Institute of Public Policy.
Type working paper
Scope Post-1994 South African economy
Method mixed
Period studied 1990–2003
Regions South Africa, Western Cape, Eastern Cape
Themes education human capital, transition post apartheid, macro fiscal finance debt, inequality poverty unemployment, politics ideology elections, origins segregation
Citation key fiske2003

Argument

South Africa chose a mixed public/private funding model for schools, with governing bodies encouraged to charge fees, for several reasons: scarce public funds, the transition compromises on local control, and above all the aim of keeping middle-class families in public schools. The authors argue the policy succeeded in retaining the middle class and apparently did not keep primary-age children out of school. But it let class replace race as the sorting mechanism for the formerly white schools and did little for historically disadvantaged schools. GEAR-era fiscal austerity and the 7 percent of GDP spending ceiling blocked the hoped-for rise in public funding. They propose letting schools choose between charging fees and receiving guaranteed supplemental state-funded teachers.

Evidence and method

School-level data from the Eastern Cape and Western Cape education departments (fees, exemptions, SGB teachers, teacher qualifications, matriculation results); national enrolment estimates (EMIS, October Household Survey, SALDRU, EFA); National Treasury spending data; the Hunter Report and consultant reports (Crouch, Colclough); SASA; interviews with national and provincial policy makers and school principals in the first half of 2002.

Findings

  • Private schools enrol only a small share of students nationally, consistent with low middle-class flight. (p. 5)

    only 2.1 percent students in the country as a whole were enrolled in such schools in 2000.

  • Fees vary widely by province and school type; the median Western Cape secondary fee exceeds the Eastern Cape's. (p. 7)

    The typical, or median, secondary school student in the Eastern Cape faced a fee of between 51 and 100 rands, while his or her counterpart in the Western Cape encountered a fee of over 250 rands.

  • The decisive argument for fees was to keep elite and middle-class families in public schooling and preserve political support for state education. (p. 5)

    Most decisive in taking this decision, though, was the argument that the charging of fees would forestall a flight of the middle class to private schools

  • Primary under-enrolment was not a significant problem, so fees do not appear to have excluded primary-age children. (p. 12)

    Based on these admittedly imperfect estimates of enrollment rates, it would be difficult to argue that school fees have kept significant numbers of South African children from enrolling in primary schools.

  • Poor schools struggle to collect even tiny fees, so poor families often pay little or nothing. (p. 13)

    most of them face major difficulties in collecting their published fees even when they are as low as, say, 20 rands per year.

  • Fee exemptions are rarely used even in former white schools, implying that those schools mostly enrol families who can pay; class is replacing race as the gatekeeper. (p. 14)

    In primary schools, only 2.5 percent of the families overall and 4.1 percent in the former white schools receive fee exemptions.

  • Fee revenue greatly augments resources only in former white schools, which can hire several extra teachers, while African schools gain almost nothing. (p. 15)

    In contrast, the average fee of 2,707 rands per learner in the former white schools would augment total public funding in those schools by 54 percent.

  • Regression: teacher qualifications and SGB teachers carry large estimated effects on matric pass rates, controlling for poverty and fees. (p. 17)

    Much larger are the effects on matriculation rates of the advantage that the white schools enjoy with respect to teacher qualifications (7.9 percentage points) and school governing body teachers as a share of state-funded teachers (7.5 percentage points).

  • GEAR austerity and the benchmark against international spending left little room for extra public education spending. (p. 18)

    The combination of fiscal austerity and the economic slowdown left little leeway for additional public spending of any type.

  • Nominal education spending growth of 14 percent in 1997/98-2000/01 was a real-terms decline given faster price rises. (p. 18)

    Total spending, including both national and provincial spending, increased by only 14 percent between 1997/98 and 2000/01

  • Overall verdict: the fee policy helped retain the middle class but did little for historically disadvantaged schools. (p. 19)

    Contrary to the expectations of the international consultants, however, the fee policy did little, if anything, to help the historically disadvantaged schools.