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South Africa: Budget Allocations to Eradicate Mud Schools

The Eastern Cape is a poor, mainly rural province in South Africa, which spends 45 percent of its total budget on education. Eighty percent of the education budget is spent on personnel, leaving very little for other things such as text books and decent infrastructure that are essential for quality education. Because a large part of Eastern Cape consisted of “bantustans” (areas reserved for black African people) during the apartheid years, some of schools in these areas were poorly built and in bad condition. In 2009, the province’s education department said that it would need R23 billion to put an end to unsafe schools and classrooms – in particular those built from mud.

In 2004 the South African president told parliament that by March 2005 there would be no student “learning under a tree, mud school or any dangerous position.” Four years later during his 2008-09 Budget Speech, the province’s education minister said, “All mud schools have been declared unsafe and are required to be replaced in 2008/09.” In 2009 the Minister announced that March 2010 was the new deadline for the end of mud schools.  This short document details concisely the process behind implementing this announcement.

 

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Uploaded on: Dec 18, 2015
Year Published: 2011


Resource Tags

Resource Type: Impact Evidence Issues: Children's Rights, Education, Ethnic / Religious Minorities' Rights, Legal Aid & Public Interest Law, Livelihoods, Policy Advocacy Languages: English Regions: South Africa Nature of Impact: Acquisition of Remedy / Entitlement / Information, Change in institutional / government practice Scale of Intervention/Impact: 0 to 1,000 people Institutions Engaged: National Court, Service Delivery Agencies Evaluation Method: Case Studies