{"id":768287,"date":"2024-04-17T10:31:04","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T08:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=768287"},"modified":"2024-04-17T11:02:23","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T09:02:23","slug":"school-costs-hit-parents-hard-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/768287\/school-costs-hit-parents-hard-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"School costs hit parents hard in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Headline inflation in South Africa has softened for March, but the price of education, particularly high school, have the largest increase since the start of the 2020s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Stats SA, headline inflation dropped from 5.6% in February to 5.3% in March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The statistics body said that the rate has held its ground between 5% and 6% since September 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The monthly change in the consumer price index (CPI) was 0.8% in March – lower than the 1.0% increase in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The biggest increases<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The categories with the highest annual price changes in March were miscellaneous goods & services (up 8.5%), education (up 6.3%), health (up 6.0%) and housing & utilities (up 5.9%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Education fees are only surveyed once a year in March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall education was 6.3% more expensive in 2024 compared to a year prior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This exceeded the 5.7% increase in 2023 and the highest since 2020 when the rate was 6.4%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

High schools saw the largest significant increase (up 7.3%), followed by primary schools and tertiary institutions (both up by 5.9%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cr\u00e8ches and university boarding were also surveyed in March, increasing by 6.0% and 8.2%, respectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“The increase in miscellaneous goods & services was mainly driven by higher health insurance premiums, recorded by Stats SA in February. As reported in last month\u2019s review, the average price of health insurance increased by 12.9% in 2024,” said Stats SA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The 6,0% annual rise in the health index was driven by increased prices of medical products and medical services.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, inflation for food and non-alcoholic beverages (NAB) slowed from 6.1% in February to 5.1% in March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is significantly down from the recent peak of 14.0% in March 2023 and the lowest annual increase since September 2020, when the rate was 3.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bread & cereals registered a softer annual print of 5.0% compared to February\u2019s 6,1% – far lower than the recent high of 21.8% in January 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meat inflation also dropped in March due to lower beef and mutton prices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annual rate for meat in March was 0.8%, well below the recent peak of 11.4% in February 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, the annual inflation for sugar, sweets & desserts was 17.8%, having remained above the 15.0% for half a year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Products with the largest annual price increases include brown sugar (up 22.0%), white sugar (up 20.1%), chocolate slabs (up 17.9%) and chocolate bars (up 15.9%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other big price changes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA said that the inflation for alcohol & tobacco was due to an annual increase in excise taxes, increasing by a monthly 1.9% – the largest monthly rise since the same period last year. Prices increased by 4.5% overall in the year to March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Housing rents were also surveyed in March and rose by 0.8%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The transport jumped by 2.0% between February and March due to a monthly rise of 5.3% in fuel prices. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Read<\/strong>: Critical tax deadline fast approaching \u2013 a first for South Africa<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inflation in South Africa has dropped on the back of lower food prices, but education costs have gone in the opposite direction. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":653567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,1809],"class_list":["post-768287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768287"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768304,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768287\/revisions\/768304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}