Who+should+pay+school+fees,+John+Pampallis,+Business+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, 23 January 2007
=Who should pay school fees?=


 * John Pampallis**

RECENTLY, the education minister announced two significant initiatives in connection with school funding. The first — the abolition of fees for the poorest 40% of public schools — should be applauded.

But the other initiative is likely to have worrying consequences. The education department’s new fee exemption regulations have extended exemptions to more parents, mainly by making partial exemptions a right for many families who did not qualify for them under the old system. Previously, full exemptions were available to all families that earned less than 10 times the school fee, and partial exemptions were granted at the discretion of the school.

The department has now developed a formula, applicable to all public schools, which grants partial exemptions from fees for parents earning between 10 times and 30 times the school fees.

In many of the more upmarket, former Model C schools, the policy will result in partial exemptions for parents earning up to half a million rand a year. This will mean a substantial decrease in school income. In many schools, the parents who qualify for full or partial exemption will outnumber those who do not.

School funding is a controversial issue. To understand why this is so, it is necessary to examine how schooling was restructured early in the postapartheid period. From 1994, the political imperative was to find ways to skew funding in favour the poorer, black schools. However, it was also untenable to allow former white schools to deteriorate markedly in quality. They were the most functional part of the schooling system, producing most of the university entrants. They also had the potential to provide a quality education to a small but significant portion of the black population.

The solution eventually settled on was to allow public schools to charge fees if the majority of parents agreed. In the more affluent communities, this allowed schools to maintain and even to improve the quality of education they offered. To ensure that poorer children were not excluded from these schools, regulations were devised to provide for fee exemptions for poorer learners. This meant that the wealthier parents, in partnership with the state, subsidised the education of poorer children in their schools.

One of the reasons this solution was adopted was a desire to keep middle-class children of all races in the public school system. The government argued that if the quality of education dropped at the privileged public schools, middle-class parents would begin to remove their children from the public school system and put them in private schools. This would deprive public schooling of its most influential advocates as business people, public servants and even teachers would no longer depend on public schools to educate their own children. This would be to the detriment of the whole public school system, and the only way to avoid it would be to allow public schools to charge fees to supplement state funding.

This strategy has been very successful from a number of viewpoints. The middle class has indeed remained mainly in the public school system. Private schools still cater for less than 4% of learners. The process of racial integration at the former Model C schools has, despite some problems, proceeded remarkably smoothly. It is scarcely an exaggeration to see these schools as a crucible in which a new nonracial middle class is being forged. Their learners’ achievements in the Senior Certificate examinations are generally good — and in some schools, they are outstanding.

It’s difficult to understand what motivated the education department to introduce the new exemptions policy. It is not likely to increase access to the better-off schools, which are generally full to capacity and each year turn away applicants. The only apparent “benefit” will be to provide relief to parents who are paying fees and can afford to continue doing so. The costs to the public education system, however, will be considerable. Many schools will be forced to cut back on teachers and their educational offerings will decline in quantity and quality. This will be made worse by private schools luring away the best teachers. The result will be better-off parents gradually abandoning the public schools in favour of private education.

One suggestion made by the education minister — possibly meant to compensate the better public schools for their loss of income — is that the state may pay for (or subsidise) the fees of poor learners so they can attend better-performing schools. While this could help the former Model C schools, its effect on the school system as a whole is dubious. The approach has been criticised by organisations allied to the African National Congress.

Critics argue that state money should not be used to assist a few students to attend better-resourced schools. Instead, it should be used to upgrade township and rural schools which are attended by a far larger number of poor learners. One can’t help but agree that the public school system would be better off if the state were to put its additional resources into improving poorer schools and oblige those who can afford it to subsidise the education of their own children — at least until government is able to provide free, quality education for all.


 * Pampallis is director of the Centre for Education Policy Development and a member of the governing body of Parktown High School for Girls. He writes in his personal capacity.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A364961**

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