FUNDING BASIC EDUCATION

This fact sheet, produced by the Institute for Economic Justice and SECTION27, analyzes budget trends in South Africa's basic education sector. It argues that austerity measures have led to a real-terms decline in per-learner funding, resulting in critical infrastructure failures, particularly regarding school sanitation and support for learners with disabilities, despite the constitutional right to basic education.

• The right to basic education in South Africa is described by the Constitutional Court as an unqualified right that must be realized immediately, rather than being subject to the availability of state resources or progressive realization. Core components of this right include transport, textbooks, desks, chairs, and infrastructure.
• Real spending per learner in basic education has declined by 8% between 2010 and 2017, falling from R17,822 to R16,435. This decline is attributed to education allocations failing to keep pace with rising birth rates between 2003 and 2008 and teacher compensation increasing faster than average inflation.
• In 2017, five provinces failed to meet the minimum per-learner non-personnel funding requirements for schools. This underfunding is particularly critical for no-fee schools, which cannot raise additional funds through fees to cover costs like electricity, furniture, and maintenance.
• There is a significant crisis of accountability and efficiency in provincial education departments. In Limpopo, the department recorded R194.5 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure in 2017/18, and R957.1 million in irregular expenditure during the same period.
• Funding for school infrastructure has decreased, with the Education Infrastructure Grant budget for 2019/20 being R1 billion lower than in 2015/16. Additionally, the Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI) has shown poor performance; since 2011, only 46% of targeted schools received sanitation upgrades.
• Education for learners with disabilities is severely underfunded. In KwaZulu-Natal, the department of education spends only 2.3% of its budget on special needs education. A November 2015 DBE estimate suggested that 76% of the 182,153 children with disabilities in KwaZulu-Natal were not receiving any schooling.
• School transport remains a major barrier to education access, with 68.1% of approximately 14 million learners walking to school according to the 2017 General Household Survey. The document notes the absence of a scholar transport grant in the final budget of the 5th Parliament.

APA

Institute for Economic Justice (n.d.). FUNDING BASIC EDUCATION. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IEJfactsheet-Funding-Basic-Education.pdf

Chicago

Institute for Economic Justice. FUNDING BASIC EDUCATION. n.d. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IEJfactsheet-Funding-Basic-Education.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Economic Justice |title=FUNDING BASIC EDUCATION |url=https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IEJfactsheet-Funding-Basic-Education.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforeconomicjusticendfunding, author = {{Institute for Economic Justice}}, title = {{FUNDING BASIC EDUCATION}}, institution = {Institute for Economic Justice}, url = {https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IEJfactsheet-Funding-Basic-Education.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }