A step backwards for learners’ rights to basic education

Despite celebratory claims that this year’s Budget will improve our society for future generations, the National Budget tabled by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni on 24 February 2021 does not do justice to the needs of learners in the basic education system in this country, and may have serious repercussions for future generations. The Budget advances a trend of prioritising the reduction of public debt and keeping the wealthy happy, while failing to give adequate protection to socioeconomic rights like the right to basic education. 

Some promises made in Mboweni’s Budget were hopeful, with some of the funds for education infrastructure that had been slashed last year recovered. However, SECTION27 is very concerned that the Budget allocates less funding in real terms to basic education this year and for the next three years, to the detriment of the 13.2 million learners in South African schools. 

As noted by the UN Committee for Economic Social and Cultural Rights, the right to education is an “empowerment right”, which allows individuals to enjoy other rights and participate meaningfully in society. Within the South African context, the significant transformative potential of this right has been acknowledged through its inclusion in the Bill of Rights, and must be realised to ensure that every learner can enjoy the benefits of a basic education. This Budget risks entrenching unequal access to quality education, which will not only hamper the realisation of the right to basic education, but in turn reproduce other social and economic inequalities. 

Basic education funding on a downward spiral with no end in sight

The 2021 National Budget continues and accelerates a downward trend in basic education funding which SECTION27 has documented, along with our partners in the education sector, in recent years. 

Table 1



Table 1 shows that while consolidated spending on basic education will grow slightly in nominal terms until 2023, the increases are far below annual CPI inflation of between 3% to 4% for this period. This means that the real value of education spending is in fact declining. In real terms (when CPI inflation is accounted for), the government’s spending on basic education decreases by -0.7% in 2021/22 and by a further -2.4% in 2022/23. This amounts to real cuts of R1.8-billion in 2021/22 and R6-billion in 2022/23. 

This real-terms reduction in funding for basic education is especially problematic, given that the number of children enrolled in the public education system is increasing at more than 160,000 learners per year. As a result of these two competing trends (reduction in education funding and an increase in learner numbers), real spending per child is declining significantly year after year. 

Table 1 shows that the government was spending R20,300 per learner on basic education in 2019/20. If learner numbers continue to increase by a similar amount in 2022/23 as they did in the previous two years, the austerity budgeting reduces this amount to R18,549. This means that the government plans to spend R1,751 less per child enrolled in public schools in 2022/23 compared to 2019/20.

In a brazen admission of its neglect of the rights of learners to a quality basic education, the Treasury concedes that limitations in allocations to the sector will result in poor learning outcomes. It says: 

“Low compensation growth of 0.8 per cent over the MTEF period, combined with early retirements, will reduce the number of available teachers. This, coupled with a rising number of learners, implies larger class sizes, especially in no-fee schools, which is expected to negatively affect learning outcomes (2021 Budget Review, p.59).”