Education spending decreases, despite the education crisis.
#MTBPS2024 #SifunaUkufunda
For Immediate Release: 31 October 2024
The 2024 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) doubled down on its path toward greater inequality, deprivation, and desperation. Treasury and government’s stubborn commitment to austerity budgeting, which aims to limit non-interest expenditure to below revenue figures until at least 2030, undermines critical socio-economic rights enshrined in our Constitution. Quality public services, in education, are essential to the country’s future. These are being criminally underfunded under the current framework.
In the weeks leading up to the MTBPS, the Department of Basic Education outlined some of the budgetary pressures facing the sector, underscoring the urgent need for additional funds to avoid further degradation. For the current financial year, the basic education sector faces a R32 billion funding shortfall. This gap is expected to widen to R176 billion by 2027/28, as learner enrollment increases, Grade R is made compulsory, and historical backlogs are exacerbated.
This year’s MTBPS offered no relief. After the signing of the Basic Education Amendment Laws Act (BELA), the school system needs to accommodate at least 250,000 additional Grade R learners next year, but no additional funding has been provided. Consolidated education spending, which includes money spent by provinces, was cut by R1.2 billion, from R324.5 to R323.3 billion for this financial year.
The 2024 MTBPS highlighted infrastructure as one of its main pillars but offered little in the way of commitments to fixing school infrastructure backlogs. This financial year’s target for the Accelerated School Infrastructure Delivery Initiative (ASIDI) was to build 30 new schools and 100 water facilities. Reductions to the School Infrastructure Backlogs Grant (SIBG) have resulted in 1 new school and no new water facilities. After adjusting for inflation, the value of the Education Infrastructure Grant will decline by around 3% each year until 2026/27. Talk of “South Africa, the Construction Site” rings hollow to the 1,770 schools that have been waiting for over a decade for the undignified and dangerous plain pit toilets on their properties to be eradicated.
An additional R321 million has been added to the EIG this year for new schools and natural disaster relief in the Western Cape. This is but a band-aid to the bullet wound that is years of government austerity. The education disaster in the Western Cape extends well beyond flood-damaged schools. National and provincial austerity measures have pressured the Western Cape Education Department to reduce its educator post basket by 2,407 teachers next year.
Treasury’s response to the teacher shortage only adds insult to injury. Fewer young teachers are being funded to enter the sector after cuts to the Funza Lushaka bursary scheme were announced in February. To make matters worse, the MTBPS tabled R11 billion to encourage public sector workers to take early retirement packages. Treasury’s stated commitment to contain the public sector wage bill as much as possible will push the education system to the brink of collapse.
Equalisers have expressed dismay at teacher cuts, noting not only that growing classroom sizes will worsen learning environments and outcomes, but also dampen learners’ ambitions to be part of the future education workforce. Austerity damages both our present and our future.
The dangers of educational neglect are glaring. The ripple effects of Bantu education are painfully manifest. There is no doubt the connection between the systematic under-resourcing of Black schools under apartheid and the triple crisis of poverty, inequality, and unemployment experienced today. The Government of National Unity’s first mini-budget continues to fail Black learners and the future of our country.
Increased public investment in education and social infrastructure should be viewed as a long-term growth strategy, not merely as a social spending cost. A well-funded education system improves learners’ productive capacities and equips them with vital skills for a sustainable and inclusive economy.
Beyond education, the impact of austerity is felt across multiple public services. Investing in these services is essential to reducing the deep inequalities that characterise South Africa’s socio-economic landscape. The MTBPS does not do this. Instead, the social grant budget will be cut by R21 billion in nominal terms next year. Public employment programmes are not being funded. And the data used to gauge the provincial poverty rates date back to 2010/11. Without adequate support, millions of South Africans are left vulnerable, with limited access to the services they need to improve their quality of life and contribute to the economy.
We urge Parliament, our elected representatives, to closely scrutinise the MTBPS on behalf of the public and in the interests of the public, questioning whether the current fiscal approach truly reflects South Africa’s constitutional obligations to uphold socio-economic rights. Parliamentarians have a critical role in ensuring that fiscal policies advance, rather than hinder, the nation’s social and economic goals. Given the substantial and long-lasting impact of education funding decisions, the government must abandon austerity to safeguard the public’s interests. By evaluating the MTBPS through this lens, Parliament can take meaningful steps to amend the budget so that it prioritises human development, supports truly inclusive economic development, and ultimately addresses the structural inequalities embedded in our society.
We call on public representatives to recognise that fiscal restraint should not come at the expense of vital public services, which are necessary for sustainable, inclusive growth. Public education, social protection, healthcare, and employment programmes are not simply budget items; they are the pillars upon which a fairer, more just South Africa should be built. They should be adequately funded. Sifuna ukufunda!
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To arrange a media interview, contact: Ayanda Sishi-Wigzell, Communications Manager.
Email: ayanda@equaleducation.org.za
Phone: 076 879 3017
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