{"id":858016,"date":"2026-04-22T11:02:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T09:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=858016"},"modified":"2026-04-22T11:27:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T09:27:57","slug":"major-pain-for-parents-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/858016\/major-pain-for-parents-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Pain for private school parents in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The latest inflation data from Stats SA shows that CPI remains fairly muted, but the cost of schooling is almost double the headline rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cost of living rose by 3.1% in the 12 months to March, according to the latest consumer price index (CPI). This is slightly up from 3.0% recorded in February. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prices increased on average by 0.6% in March 2026 compared with February 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six of the 13 categories in the CPI basket recorded higher annual rates, including restaurants & accommodation services; education; transport; housing & utilities; information & communication; and recreation, sport & culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The education component in the CPI is updated once a year in March. Tuition fees increased by 5.4% in 2026, higher than the 4.5% rise recorded in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Primary & secondary education rose by 6.2% (from 5.0% in 2025), while tertiary education increased by 4.2% (from 3.7% in 2025). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Private secondary schools recorded the sharpest rise in 2026, climbing by 7.5%.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transport inflation moved higher, but remains in deflationary territory. The annual rate for the transport category increased from -2.1% in February to -1.6% in March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The negative values represent deflation, meaning that transport prices were, in general, 1.6% cheaper in March 2026 compared with March 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deflation is a result of fuel prices declining by 8.7% over the 12-month period, supported by a marginal increase of 0.4% in vehicle prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passenger transport fares for March recorded an annual rise of 0.7%. The monthly rate was 1.6%, driven by a 20.0% jump in long-distance bus fares and a 14.3% increase in airfares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this is with a major caveat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CPI release for March covers data collected before the sharp fuel price increases that were introduced on 1 April. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impact of these higher prices on inflation will be included in the next CPI release that will be published on 20 May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meat prices still sky-high<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The annual rate for food & non-alcoholic beverages (NAB) slowed further to 3.6% in March from 3.7% in February and 4.4% in January. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four of the 11 food & NAB categories are in deflationary territory, including fruits & nuts; vegetables; cereal products; and milk, other dairy products & eggs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The milk, other dairy products & eggs category recorded its 10th successive month of deflation at -0.5% in March, slightly higher than February\u2019s -0.7%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three products are cheaper than a year ago, namely fresh full-cream milk (currently in its 13th month of deflation at -0.4%), powdered milk (-5.5%), and eggs (-6.3%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prices for cereal products declined by 1.0% on average. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

White rice, porridge, maize meal, basmati rice, instant noodles, brown bread and bread flour are cheaper than in March 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average price for a kilogram of white rice, for example, declined from R29.01 to R27.82 over the 12-month period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meat recorded its second monthly decrease, with beef prices moderating between February 2026 and March 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Declines were recorded for stewing beef (-4.2%), steak (-2.0%), mince (-1.9%) and offal (-1.5%). Biltong fans can also breathe a sigh of relief, with prices edging lower by 0.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annual rate for meat also slowed, easing to 11.6% from 12.2% in February. Beef products registered lower rates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most notably, steak retreated from 28.6% in February to 24.1% in March and stewing beef from 26.9% to 22.6%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pork bucked the trend, increasing from 17.3% to 19.5%. Bacon inflation was also up, from 2.2% to 4.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The March CPI figures include results for the latest quarterly survey of housing rents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actual rents increased by 4.0% in the first quarter of 2026, up from the 3.7% rise recorded in the fourth quarter of 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first quarter, rents for houses increased by 3.7%, townhouses by 5.1% and flats by 4.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Domestic worker wages increased by 3.7% in the first quarter of 2026. This followed an increase of 3.8% in the fourth quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accommodation services recorded a large 5.4% monthly rise to reach an annual rate of 12.2%. University boarding fees climbed by 7.2% and hotels by 6.0% between February and March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest inflation data from Stats SA shows that CPI remains fairly muted, but the cost of schooling is almost double the headline rate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":807396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[2829,7530,1809],"class_list":["post-858016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-cpi","tag-inflation","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858016","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\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858016"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":858024,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858016\/revisions\/858024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}