Who is out of school? Evidence from the Statistics South Africa Community Survey

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Abstract

The South Africa Schools Act requires every child to “attend school from the first school day of the year in which such learner reaches the age of seven years until the last day of the year in which such learner reaches the age of 15 years or the ninth grade, whichever comes first” (Republic of South Africa, 1996). This paper addresses three questions in relation to this. First, to what extent has this legal requirement been met? Second, what are the trends in relation to achieving universal access to compulsory education? And third, what are the factors related to and characteristics of those learners of compulsory school age who are not attending? To address these questions, we have made use of the Statistics South Africa dataset, Community Survey 2007. Our analysis suggests that the size of the compulsory age population who are not attending school may be slightly higher than some government sources have suggested. The trend associated with access remains consistent, with the only major change over the past 10 years being the improved levels of enrolment of six and seven year old children. With regard to the factors related to and the characteristics of children who are not attending school, our analysis reveals that certain sub-populations have higher non-attendance ratios: coloured boys; children whose parents, particularly mothers, have died; children born outside South Africa; children who have moved in the past five years; children with disabilities; and children living in some specific rural communities. A number of broad but interrelated factors may account for children not being in school: disability; family structure; children living in households that are eligible for social grants but are not receiving them; and geographic and racial characteristics. To be poor in South Africa may mean exclusion from the mainstream of the economy, but it does not necessarily mean exclusion from access to basic state services like enrolment in schooling or social grants. Children not attending are not only likely to be living in households that are excluded from participation in the mainstream economy, but are also on the fringes of state services; they may also be on the fringes of households. The paper concludes with recommendations for further research to identify reasons why children in these vulnerable sub-populations are less likely to be enrolled.

Section snippets

Introduction and literature review

The right to a basic education has been guaranteed in the Constitution of the Republic of South African [section 29(1)] since 1996. The South African Schools Act (1996) [section 3(1)] makes it compulsory for all children to attend school from the first school day of the year in which they reach the age of seven years until the last school day of the year in which they reach the age of 15 or the end of Grade 9. This framework legislation embodies the South African government's commitment to the

Research method

The Community Survey 2007 was conducted by Statistics South Africa in February 2007. It was constituted by a two-stage stratified cluster sample design involving the drawing of the enumeration areas within municipalities in the first stage and drawing on dwelling units within selected enumeration areas in the second stage. Of a total of 79,466 enumeration areas, 17,098 were sampled. The sample size comprised 949,105 individuals from 246,618 households (StatsSA, 2009). The survey collected

Prevalence of children not attending school

Participation in South Africa's education system is very high. In 2007, almost 96% of children of compulsory school age were attending an educational institution (see Table 1). Since 2001 there has been an improvement in the participation rate of children in each age cohort between seven and 15 years. The biggest increase has been among seven year olds: between 2001 and 2007 the percentage of seven year olds attending school increased from 88.4% to 95.1%. The phasing in of a reception year

Conclusion

What does the Community Survey 2007 contribute to our understanding of trends in school attendance in South Africa? First, it provides us with a good estimate of the size of the group of children of compulsory school age who are not in school. While there continues to be some concern about the inconsistencies in the data for white and Indian children, the number of out-of-school compulsory school aged children is around 386,000. Second, it shows that enrolment rates have remained relatively

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    An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 10th UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development, 15–17 September 2009, New College, Oxford. Funding for the research project was provided by the National Research Foundation and CREATE, University of Sussex. The authors are exclusively responsible for the research presented in this paper.

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