BACKGROUND TO EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

Huge effort is needed to address the huge backlogs left by 40 years of apartheid education. Under that system, white South African children received a quality schooling virtually for free, while their black counterparts had only "Bantu education".

Education was viewed as a part of the overall apartheid system, which included the "homelands", urban restrictions, pass laws and job reservation. The role of black Africans was as labourers or servants only. As HF Verwoerd, the architect of the Bantu Education Act of 1953, conceived it: "There is no place for [the African] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour. It is of no avail for him to receive a training which has as its aim, absorption in the European community."

Although today's government is working to rectify the imbalances in education, the apartheid legacy remains. The greatest challenges lie in the poorer, rural provinces like the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Schools are generally better resourced in the more affluent provinces such as Gauteng and the Western Cape.

Illiteracy rates currently stand at around 18% of adults over 15 years old (about 9-million adults are not functionally literate), teachers in township schools are poorly trained, and the metric pass rate remains low.

While 65% of whites over 20 years old and 40% of Indians have a high school or higher qualification, this figure is only 14% among blacks and 17% among the coloured population.

POPULATION STATISTICS

Population estimated at 49,99 million in Mid 2010

EDUCATION

According to the Statistics South Africa Community Survey of 2007, the percentage of the population aged 20 years and older who have completed:

No schooling: 10.3%

Some primary: 16%

Completed primary: 5.9&

Some secondary: 40.1%

Grade 12: 18.9%

Higher education: 9.1%

EMPLOYMENT

Unemployment at 24,0% 4th Quarter 2010

INCOME AND WEALTH

GDP  1st quarter 2011 4,8% q/q

Average monthly earnings including bonuses and overtime: R6 833 (Nov 2010)

Gross earnings: R337 846 000 (December 2010)

EXPENDITURE

Compared with most other countries, education gets a very large slice of the public pie – usually around 20% of total state expenditure.