Home > Member countries > South Africa

Education in South Africa

• Country Profile
• Education Fact Sheet
• Management & Administration of Education
• Reading & Math Achievement Levels
• Research papers and theses
• SACMEQ Indicators
• SACMEQ Reports

Country profile

South Africa occupies the southern-most tip of the African continent.  The South African nation is a nation in transition.  After many decades of institutionalized racial discrimination, colonial and apartheid rule, South Africa became a constitutional democracy in April 1994.  The immediate challenge of the fledgling democracy was to dismantle the divisive apartheid structures in all spheres of life and to usher in a new order of a unified nation with a shared vision.

The cornerstone of the country’s democracy is a constitution, passed by Act 108 of 1996 which upholds the inviolability of human rights for all.  The constitution affords everyone the right “… to a basic education, including adult basic education…”.  To give effect to the tenets of the constitution, the post-apartheid government passed laws and promulgated policies that seek to transform the lives of the citizens in general and to wipe out all vestiges of racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination.  In particular, access to education of a high quality and equitable distribution of human as well as material resources have been identified as key transformational goals.  

A census conducted in 1996 revealed that there were 40,58 million people in South Africa comprised as 77 percent black, 11 percent white, 9 percent coloured and 3 percent Indian/Asian.   Approximately 54 percent of the population lived in urban areas.  In a move to promote multilingualism, the government adopted eleven major languages in the country as “official languages” to be used in State and other official communications.  The most common first home language was isiZulu, which was spoken by 23 percent of the people, followed by isiXhosa spoken by 18 percent.  About 14 percent of the people spoke Afrikaans as a first home language while 9 percent had their first home language as English.  The other official languages are Setswana, Sesotho, Sepedi, siSwati, isiNdebele, Xitsonga and Tshivenda.

Demographics*:

*latest data as of March 2009 from UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

Back to top

Education Fact Sheet

Minister of education: Hon. Naledi PANDOR

Education System:

The South African Schools Act (SASA) (1996) makes provision for two types of schools in the system – public and independent schools.  Both types of schools follow the same curriculum and adhere to minimum standards set by the Department of Education.  Whilst public schools are funded by the State, independent schools provide their own funding although their access to State subsidies is not precluded.

The public school structure is organized according to a broad National Qualifications Framework (NQF) that was adopted by Act of parliament in 1999.  The key objective of the NQF was to create a seamless and integrated education system which would encompass learning outcomes from formal, informal and vocational sectors including the early childhood development (ECD), general education and training (GET), further education and training (FET) and higher education (HE).  The framework brings together education and training, skills development and the needs of a critical democracy, social and economic development.  The unifying factor for all educational offerings is a single set of “critical and developmental outcomes” which learners need to attain, regardless of whether they follow a formal or informal learning pathway.

Through recognition of prior learning (RPL), credits obtained from one sector can be carried over to another and this enables learners to progress through the system by following different paths.  For example, learners can switch from the ABET informal path to any of the formal sector phases (Foundation, Intermediate and Senior Phase), and vice versa, and still progress to FET provided they accumulate the required number of credits.

Management and Administration of Education

The first phase of South Africa’s transformation in the mid to late 1990s saw the demise of 19 racially and ethnically divided departments of education and the replacement of these with one Ministry of Education consisting of the national and nine provincial departments of education.  Chiefly, the national department develops policies while provincial departments are charged with the responsibility to implement the policies at the school level. 

The administrative tier between the province and the school is the district or region in some instances.  Being at the point where the education system interfaces directly with learning sites, districts are ideally positioned to provide administrative and professional support to schools.  In recognition of the critical role that districts must play in effective administration of the school system, the Ministry initiated the District Development Project (DDP) to develop new organization models to improve administrative and professional services at district level.
                                                                                                            
The pre-1994 administration of schools at district level was marked by an inspection system whose approach was predominantly policing and dictatorial control and seldom went beyond checking mechanistic compliance.  The advent of democracy saw a major shift towards a developmental and supportive interaction between district officials, school principals, educators, and School Management Teams.

See the SACMEQ reports for more information.

Back to top

South Africa - Reading and Math Achievement Levels

SACMEQ II (2000) Reading achievement

• Percentage of Grade 6 pupils at each level:

SACMEQ II (2000) Math achievement

• Percentage of Grade 6 pupils at each level:

For more country statistics, see also:

• StatPlanet - Explore data through Maps and Graphs

SACMEQ Indicators

Back to top

SACMEQ Reports

• SACMEQ II Report:

Research Papers and Theses

Back to top

Search

Contact us

About SACMEQ
Member countries
Ministers meetings
National coordinators
Photo gallery
Research medals
SACMEQ in the news
External friends
Useful links

Indicators and Reports

SACMEQ indicators
SACMEQ reports
Technical reports

Research and Training

Papers & theses
Training modules
Training workshops

SACMEQ III

Project update
Scientific committee

SACMEQ data

Data archive application

Visualization

Research visualization
StatPlanet Map Maker