School Community Integration Pilot Project - Department of Education

A comparative analysis of education expenditure in Eastern Cape schools – November 2004
prioritised towards the poorest schools through five poverty weighted quintiles. As
the NSSF has been progressively implemented there have been increasing concerns
about the wide variation in per learner allocations per province reflected in the table
above. Per learner allocations in the two poorest quintiles, Q1 and Q2, have also
varied greatly between provinces with the poorer provinces able to allocate far less
per learner. In 2003 the Department of Education concluded that ‘a basic minimum
package’ of NPNC inputs should be around R500 per learner in 2002 Rands. 13 The
table above shows that only the three non-homeland provinces were close to this
level in 2002/03.
2.2.3. Conclusions from provincial trends in education expenditure
Education expenditure in the Eastern Cape fell in real terms in the period 1997/98 to
2000/01 as limited funding was devoted to repaying debt and personnel backlogs.
Non-personnel resources were especially limited during this period leading to very
limited expenditure on teaching and learning materials in schools. Expenditure
increased rapidly in real terms from 2000/01 onwards due both to increases in
national funding above the rate of inflation and to real increases in the allocation to
education within the province. This enabled the province to gradually recover from
the financial crisis of the late 1990s and to increase the share of its budget devoted
to non-personnel. At the same time there is pressure on the education budget:
• Growth in expenditure on social grants has been even higher than in
education over the same period. This trend will continue for the medium term
and is limiting the scope of the province to continue the growth in allocations
to education of recent years.
• Even allowing for this factor, the province has responded with a sharp
reduction in the relative allocation to education over the last three years,
greater than in any other province. The Eastern Cape needs to reverse this
rapid reduction in the proportion of funding given to education.
• While education expenditure has grown in all provinces at rates significantly
higher than inflation in recent years, this rate of growth is not expected to
continue. The Eastern Cape is projecting only small real increases in the
education budget over the current MTEF period 2004/05 to 2006/07.
High real growth in education expenditure since 2000/01 has enabled release of
funding for non-personnel items vital to education. This growth is however relatively
recent and follows a period of financial crisis from 1997/98 to 2000/01 when nonpersonnel
funding was virtually non-existent. The crucial area of non-personnel noncapital
expenditure is still well below average and certainly well below the national
per learner target, although progress has been made in reaching a more adequate
NPNC funding level in recent years. The province however faces the challenge of
keeping and developing these gains in an environment of far greater funding
pressures, both currently and over the next few years.
13 Department of Education: Improving access to free and quality basic education for all, June 2003,
p.16.
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