Schools carry rising cost of exemptions

Former Model C schools annually grant hundreds of millions of rands in fee exemptions to learners, but receive a pittance in compensation from provincial education departments.

As the number of requests for exemptions grow, the Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools (Fedsas) has asked the department of basic education to urgently investigate the possibility of reimbursing schools for fee exemptions with amounts similar to the subsidies given to no-fee-paying schools.

Fedsas has suggested an amount of R1 242 for every learner granted a full fee exemption — what government was paying no-fee schools this year for every child who was enrolled.

Between April 2015 and March 2016, more than 530 quintile four and five schools in Gauteng — the so-called wealthy schools — granted fee exemptions worth a staggering R631.6-million, but received only R13-million in compensation.

A total of 32 fee-charging schools in Edenvale, Kempton Park and Tembisa granted R45.7-million in fee exemptions in 2015, but received only R2.1-million in compensation.

Paul Colditz, the chief executive of Fedsas, confirmed that the federation would be meeting the basic education department in June to get feedback on its suggestion that provincial education departments pay R1242 to a school for every learner granted a full fee exemption.

“The schools get very, very small amounts from the departments in compensation,” Colditz said.

“The numbers speak for themselves. At least Gauteng is one of the provinces where they do compensate schools that grant fee exemptions.”

Colditz said the Eastern Cape paid compensation to schools granting fee exemptions for the first time earlier this month since the introduction of the compensation policy in 2011. “They paid out compensation for fee exemptions granted in 2015.”

The Mail & Guardian has established that 62 schools in Limpopo, which dished out R37million in total in fee exemptions last year, have not yet received compensation. Hoërskool Pietersburg granted R24million in fee exemptions over the past eight years, but has not received a cent in compensation.

Willie Schoeman, the school’s principal, said a higher number of parents had applied for fee exemptions this year. The R3.5-million his school has budgeted for fee exemptions this year is already depleted.

“We expect to grant a further R500 000 in fee exemptions as people get into financial difficulties over the next few months. It should be remembered that the budget to cover exemptions comes from the parents who are paying school fees.”

Schoeman said granting fee exemptions when there was no budget for it had a severe effect on the running of the school.

“If a teacher leaves, I will redivide that teacher’s work among other teachers to save costs. There have been times when I have had to combine two classes and get one teacher to teach all of them,” he said.

Tim Gordon, national chief executive of the Governing Body Foundation, said: “We are told that the applications for fee exemptions are significantly higher this year than they have been in the past. Schools are saying they are really struggling because they are seeing far more applications.”

He said some schools were being forced to cut back on staff, maintenance and learnerteacher support materials because of budgets shrinking as a result of more fee exemptions being granted.

“At some schools, 40% of learners have been granted fee exemptions.”

Gauteng education department spokesperson Oupa Bodibe said the fee compensation depended on the numbers of learners who were granted fee exemptions.

“The higher the numbers of learners exempted, the more compensation they receive,” he said.