More parents put faith in low-fee private schools

In a remote corner of rural South Africa, a private school in an abandoned office building strives to provide local parents with the type of schooling they demand for their children.

The school has put up a sign setting out its core values: it detests laziness, absenteeism, late-coming, profane language, lying and "chewing Chappies".

Schools like this exist all over South Africa. They are low-fee private schools operating in poorer communities, largely hidden from the view of those seeking solutions to South Africa's education challenges.

The Centre for Development and Enterprise spent two years assessing whether low-fee private schools exist in disadvantaged areas of South Africa.

Researchers walked the streets of six communities - Giyani and Malamule in Limpopo, Braamfontein and Daveyton in Gauteng, and Butterworth and Cofimvaba/Tsomo in the Eastern Cape.

They mapped all the public and private schools they found and discovered that across the six study areas, 30% are private, catering for 14.5% of the 100000 pupils in these areas.

Many of the parents sending their children to low-fee private schools were themselves public school teachers.

The schools we visited were generally founded by entrepreneurs responding to a demand for better schools in poorer parts of South Africa. Frequently these entrepreneurs were approached by parents to start the schools.

In the Johannesburg city centre, for example, an entrepreneur who had started a Saturday school was approached by parents to run the school during the week. Parents subsequently asked him to open branches of the school closer to their homes in Soweto and Diepsloot. He now runs a successful chain of schools.

In Benoni, a woman who provided evening literacy classes in her spare time was asked by her adult students if she could also teach their children. She now runs a successful school catering primarily for children in Daveyton township, which produces excellent matric results year after year.

In rural Limpopo, a teacher from Ghana tutored children after school. A committee of parents asked her to start a school. She now runs a school with over 1000 pupils in Malamulele.

When researchers entered public schools unannounced, teachers were often absent or eating or on cellphones. In low-fee private schools during similar visits, teaching was invariably taking place, often after hours, and no teacher was absent in any of the private unregistered schools surveyed (25%-30% of all private schools).

Despite low-fee private schools having far less infrastructure and fewer formally qualified teachers, many parents choose these schools, paying an average of R650 a month in areas where public schools cost an average R104 a month (R50 if no-fee schools are included).

Our interviews with 171 parents were revealing. These are not hapless dupes conned by fly-by-night operators. Most schools have been in existence for 10 years or more, growing grade by grade.

Parents know the merits of local schools, are involved in the school and have strong views on what kind of education they want for their children.

A pupil at a private school told us: "My mother says at public schools no one really cares what happens. There is no owner."

In a private school, teachers are accountable to the principal (who can fire them) and, through him or her, to the parents (who can withdraw their children). In a government school, the chain of accountability is much weaker, as teachers generally have permanent jobs with salaries and promotions unrelated to performance.

Our findings confirm that private schools are significantly enhancing educational options for poorer South Africans, and this sector is growing rapidly.

What we found has profound implications and raises important issues.

Should free schools be a priority? What really makes for improved teacher performance? Should we focus more attention on sanctions for teacher absenteeism and bad performance? Can competition at all income levels improve the quality of schooling in SA, especially for poorer families? How does the country achieve better combinations of public and private resources in the quest for good schools? Should we be experimenting with a system where public money goes to pupils, not schools? Is the size of SA's massive public schooling system starting to shrink?

Public schooling is not the only option for educating poorer people. Low-fee private schools should be seen as a vital part of our education environment.

We need to reassess our regulatory regime to support the development of private schools. We should use the potential of competition as a tool for improving education, ensuring that all schools become more accountable to the communities they are meant to serve. This will require that public schools face the consequences of poor performance.

• Ann Bernstein is executive director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise. This article is based on a new CDE report, Hidden Assets: South Africa's low-fee private schools.