Many pupils and teachers will have to wait much longer for the government to eradicate the dreaded pit latrine toilets at schools.
A total of 1,252 pit latrine toilets in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo need to be replaced with proper ablution facilities.
Basil Manuel, executive director of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA, says that while the organisation welcomes funding for water to 50 schools and sanitation to 450 institutions, it had hoped that money would have been provided to wipe out the entire backlog.
The budget allocations for basic and higher education evoked mixed reactions from teacher unions, governing body associations and education experts.
Manuel says infrastructure budget allocations will allow for the building of 30 schools over the medium term. "This is catch up, not progress. It does not start to address the curse of overcrowded classrooms, which is the biggest undermining factor in providing quality education to our children."
Manuel says the infrastructure budget will always be inadequate to sustain planned maintenance "because of the annual infrastructure regression due to vandalism and destruction of school property, which was exacerbated last year by the protest action in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng".
Prof Miriam Altman of the school of economics at the University of Johannesburg, says the education sector accounts for about 24% of the national budget and the average annual expenditure will grow by 2.8%, "which is less than inflation".
She says: "There might be some reprieve with the addition of about 250,000 teacher aides created by the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative, more spending on [the National Student Financial Aid Scheme] and grants to schools, universities and [Technical Vocational Education & Training] colleges for infrastructure. Yet the education system will be under pressure, especially in the context of about a year’s worth of lost education by learners from low-income communities because of the Covid pandemic."
Altman says the country already spends more per capita on education than that benchmarked by [the UN Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organisation].
"As with other public sector functions, it is critically important that performance and value per rand spent be deepened," she says.
"It will also require more community and civil society engagement in the process of education and training."
Prof Rajendran Govender, dean of the education faculty at the University of the Western Cape, says that despite the considerable progress made in education access and participation over the past years, a large number of children and youth aged six to 17 are still out of school.
"An extremely large number are not meeting minimum proficiency standards in reading and mathematics, and, while rapid technological changes present opportunities and challenges, the learning environment, the capacities of teachers and the quality of education have not kept pace."
Govender says it is important that the education budget is "diligently employed so that a greater percentage of learners can have access to a range of higher-education opportunities".
Sanele Gumede, an economics lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, says the country still has an infrastructure backlog, especially in rural areas.
"We still see a number of mud schools and a shortage of classroom equipment. We are in the fourth industrial revolution and investment in technological infrastructure at school should be a priority."
Gumede says SA needs to invest in curriculum reforms to help education respond to the country’s socioeconomic issues.
His colleague, Prof Labby Ramrathan from the university’s education faculty, says that while the additional allocation for teachers is insufficient, "it does go some way towards improving the teacher-learner ratio and the employment of newly qualified teachers, many of whom cannot find jobs".
He says: "In some schools, class sizes are still in excess of 50 learners, while some are bordering on 100 learners. Urgent attention is needed to improve class size, especially as we aspire to get more learners to engage with curriculum demands for subjects that focus on 21st-century skills and the technology for the fourth industrial revolution."
Ramrathan says school infrastructure development should have been prioritised, "because if we rely on the recurrent budget, the backlog will never be [eradicated]".
Jaco Deacon, CEO of school governing body federation Fedsas, asks whether SA is really getting enough value for its investment.
"The salary bill is very high, but schools still struggle with insufficient posts.
"We need more educators in classrooms and fewer officials in offices."
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