Huge increase in parents who can’t afford to pay school fees
A growing number of parents in the Western Cape simply cannot afford to pay school fees due to rising costs and the state of the economy.
This is according to the Western Cape’s minister for education, Debbie Schäfer, who said that that fee exemptions play an important role in granting access for poorer learners.
“Many of our schools in the Western Cape are classified as Quintile 4 and 5 schools (fee paying), which are supposed to be wealthy, but the reality is that they are attended by a large number of poorer learners,” she said.
“In some instances, these schools should actually be classified as Quintile 1-3 schools (no-fee schools). The National Quintile system and concomitant funding does not allow this, which shows the flaw this system, which may have had merit when it was first introduced, but has not been re-assessed since and is now hopelessly inadequate.”
To mitigate the effects of the quintile system, the Western Cape’s Education Department (WCED) has this year made an increased amount of over R55 million available to assist Quintile 4 and 5 schools that are struggling to collect school fees from parents, said Schäfer.
She said that out of the 575 public ordinary fee-paying schools in the Western Cape, this year the WCED has paid out fee compensation to 558 of them, representing 97%.
“Compensation for school fee exemptions is made available retrospectively for the previous school year, e.g. compensation paid in 2018 is for exemptions granted in the 2017 school year,” said Schäfer.
A learner is exempted from paying school fees if:
- He or she is an orphan or has been abandoned by his or her parents
- A learner for whom a poverty-linked state social grant is paid
- A learner whose parents applied for an exemption from the payment of school fees, which was granted by the governing body.
“Parents qualify for exemption if the school fees are more than 10% of the parents’ combined annual salary.
“They can apply for partial exemption if the fees represent between 2% and 10% of their annual salary depending on the number of children they have at a fee-paying, public school.”
She added that the WCED has supported schools in providing access to our poorer learners by providing fee compensation since 2011.
In 2011, the WCED paid out R20.3 million with 48,974 learners claiming compensation.
Seven years later in 2018, the WCED has paid out more than double the amount, R55.3 million for a total of 81,303 learners – up from R49.4 million for 80,895 learners in 2017.
“This is over 100% more than the WCED paid out seven years ago and is indicative of the tough economic circumstances many of our parents, and consequently our schools, currently find themselves in,” said Schäfer.
Rising costs
A recent poll run by the Sunday Times found that a record number of parents are expected to apply for fee exemptions next year.
A survey of twenty schools taken by the paper showed increases at state schools averaged 8.2% and hikes at private schools were on average 7.8% – significantly higher than the current 4.9% inflation rate.
According to the survey, Parktown High School for Girls in Johannesburg has earmarked R5.9 million for next year to assist 15% to 20% of the total pupil population.
In addition, the headmaster of Hoërskool Pietersburg, Willie Schoeman, said that parents of 93 pupils at his school still owed R1.8 million in fees for this year.
“The number of people applying for school fee exemptions will grow,” he said. “We try and push battling parents to pay something, even if it’s R200 a month.”
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