Pretoria - Private education is no longer just for the rich, thanks to an increasing number of low-fee independent schools across the country.
This is according to new research by the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE), which also found that more and more parents are now able to enrol their children in the private school education sector through low-fee independent schools.
The organisation describes low-fee independent schools as those that charge less than R12 000 a year in fees.
Last year there were 1 681 registered independent schools with 538 421 pupils, making up about 4 percent of the 12.4 million pupils in the country.
In Gauteng, about 73 000 pupils were educated last year in low-fee, not-for-profit independent schools which serve mostly poor communities. About 80 percent of the pupil population at the majority of the schools are black.
CDE executive director Ann Bernstein said “poor parents make great sacrifices to send their children to private schools”.
This is often as a result of their disillusionment with government schools and their willingness to pay for their children to attend very rudimentary private schools.
“Studies undertaken on the factors behind this trend internationally and the performance of these schools provide a very clear lesson – in system reform, accountability matters.”
Bernstein said the increase in low-fee schools was not only good for parents, but beneficial to government as it saved a lot of money that could then be used to improve already existing public schools.
“If they did not exist, the Gauteng Department of Education would need to build another 73 or so schools, each with 1 000 learners. If all learners in the sector had to be accommodated in public schools in Gauteng, it would need to build another 250 public schools. If the 500 000 learners in all independent schools had to be accommodated in public schools, it would cost the state some R6 billion a year in operating costs alone,” she said.
Bernstein said it was important to dispel the myths that most independent schools were unregistered and illegal.
“All registered low-fee schools are subject to a strict and extensive set of regulatory requirements to ensure they provide quality education. Much more is required of them than public schools, many of which would not qualify for registration or accreditation.”
Bernstein added that low-fee schools face severe sanctions for non-compliance, including losing their subsidies. “Unfortunately, there are ‘fly-by-nights’, typically unregistered, and it is the responsibility of the education departments to close them down,” she said.
Pretoria News