Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced that R19.1 billion will be added over the medium term to the Department of Basic Education (DBE). This represents a significant increase amid several challenges in the sector.
The Finance Minister announced during the 2025 Budget Speech.
During the speech, the Minister explained that provincial education departments spend 76% of their budgets on salaries.
This leaves them with around 24% of their budget for other essential expenses such as infrastructure development, providing meals for students and purchasing learning materials for learners.
Only R24 out of every R100 of their budget is left for funding school infrastructure, meals for learners from poor backgrounds, and stationery and textbooks, amongst others.
Minister Godongwana conceded that current learner-teacher ratios in the country are higher than recommended. The R19,1 billion over the medium term will be used to keep 11,000 teachers in classrooms.
To prevent compensation of employees from crowding out other equally important areas of spending, R19.1 billion is added over the medium term to keep approximately 11,000 teachers in classrooms.
Social justice group Section27 welcomed the increase to the education budget which will climb by 7.6% to R349.5 billion from last year’s R324.9 billion.
The group says the 2,7% real increase reflects the largest investment in basic education over the past decade and could have a positive impact if used effectively.
If wielded effectively, may better resource provinces to address overcrowded classrooms, school infrastructure backlogs and chronic teacher shortages than in previous years.
ECD Receives Major Boost
Minister Godongwana added that the budget for Early Childhood Development (ECD) will rise by R2.9 billion from R10.6 billion in 2024 to R13.6 billion this year. The Minister described ECD as the foundation for building the next generation of citizens.
The foundation to building the next generation of citizens who contribute economically and socially to this great nation is early childhood development.
Section27 welcomed the 27.8% year-on-year increase for ECD describing it as a crucial step toward expanding access and improving the quality of early learning programmes across the country.
The group cautioned that the, R69 million increase (1.9%) for workbooks and learning materials translates to a real decline of 3.5% after accounting for 4.7% CPI inflation.
They say this could undermine the government's efforts to improve the sector. "This shortfall risks undermining efforts to improve education quality and may place additional strain on provincial budgets, which could be forced to cover the gap in learning support materials."
