Friday, November 10, 2006 Edition 1 - The Star Online
Nomusa Cembi
The school fee system in which well-heeled parents contribute to the education of their children while the children of the poor either have to be exempted, or receive grants, has been criticised.
The South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) yesterday damned it as "a two-tier education system that is dividing people along class lines".
Sadtu has made it plain it does not favour the education minister's request to her department to develop a framework through which advantaged schools would be subsidised for enrolling non-fee- paying children.
The union felt that the minister's proposal to increase the subsidy to advantaged schools would "just further this division".
Last week, Minister Naledi Pandor said she was aware that the number of fee exemptions granted at certain schools was becoming a burden on school finances.
The 2003 review on the Resourcing, Financing and Costs of Education in Public Schools found that parents who were unable to pay school fees were treated unfairly.
Parents receiving grants on behalf of pupils were not exempted from paying fees, and schools were not informing parents of their right to apply for exemption.
Then, too, schools discriminated against children whose parents had not paid school fees or were unable to pay.
In some cases, parents had been taken to court unnecessarily.
Pandor said the right to charge school fees was matched by an obligation to exempt parents who could not afford to pay.
Yesterday Sadtu said the richest schools could not be given additional resources - particularly when report after report warned of the crisis in rural schools.
"If the department has extra resources to dispense, surely this should be the priority," a Sadtu statement said.
The union said it supported the Department of Education's efforts to enforce the rights of poor pupils to secure individual fee exemptions and access to any public school.
The National Profession Teachers' Organisation of South Africa will study and review the fee exemption regulations in its national executive committee next week.