Two weeks ago, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published the outcome of its Article IV Consultation with South Africa. The report emphasised the view that the South African state needs to prioritise debt stability, accelerate structural reforms, ease the burden on its tax base, and protect priority spending as a bare necessity. The 2026 budget tabled by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana affirms all these priorities and is likely to please our overlords.
In the most unequal country in the world, tax brackets have been adjusted to provide more relief to deceased millionaires, donors, and those with additional income to invest in financial markets and use private medical aid.
The majority of the population – those most dependent on public services – are given no such relief. The youth of our country, who face extreme levels of unemployment, who are overwhelmingly excluded from higher education and are locked out of the economy, are given no such relief.
Post School Education and Training
Reductions to the higher education and training baseline budgets are harrowing. Over the next three years, the government plans to reduce its funds to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) by R2 billion, despite clear evidence of a growing number of students who enter the Post School and Education Training (PEST) system and who are eligible for financial aid each academic year. The entity must constantly find a balance between the number of students it takes and the benefits it allocates to them, in line with the available funds.
University subsidies will also be reduced by almost R2 billion. Overall, the department’s baseline allocation will decrease by R6 billion. Funds for the establishment of a new University of Science and Technology in Ekurhuleni, announced by President Ramaphosa in his SONA in 2020, are yet to be allocated.
Patterns of spending in higher education have proven to be extremely volatile. This points to a lack of focused planning – both by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and Treasury. Over the years, allocations have been shifted back-and-forth between different functions.
While increases to the University Infrastructure and Efficiency Grant (UIEG) and TVET Infrastructure and Efficiency Grant (TIEG) over the medium term are welcomed, these come in the context of overcrowding and significant student accommodation and other infrastructure backlogs, affecting both university and TVET college students. At the start of each academic year, many first-year students and returning students are forced to sleep outside university and TVET campuses until they are placed into affordable, quality and safe accommodation, if at all.
During the budget adjustments period in 2025, an estimated R846,5 million was earmarked for investment in Community Education and Training (CET) college infrastructure over the medium term. This amount has since been reduced to R676 million over the medium term, impacting the ability of already fiscally constrained CET colleges to expand their infrastructure and operate effectively to provide accessible second-chance education and vocational skills opportunities to out-of-school youth and adults who did not complete school or qualify for university/TVET placement.
The gap between matric success and available spaces in the PSET system is a longstanding issue. While the number of matriculants qualifying for tertiary education has reached a record high, cuts to NSFAS and under resourcing of higher education in general mean that not all of them can be placed. By his own admission, Minister Buti Manamela confirmed earlier this year that the PSET system only has about 535 000 funded and planned spaces across universities, TVET colleges, CET colleges, skills programmes and work-based learning opportunities. The question then remains – where do talented youth who are not absorbed by the PSET system go? This is a growing pressure point that can no longer be deferred to the future.
Basic Education
We can trace a direct line between the spending choices made in this year’s budget and the substandard conditions in no-fee schools across the country, where learners are in desperate need of more classrooms, more teachers, and more resources to develop.
Overall, basic education expenditure will not increase in real terms after accounting for enrolment growth and inflation in the sector.
There are also baseline reductions to school infrastructure spending of nearly R1.2 billion over the next three years. In real terms, spending on school infrastructure will decrease by 8 percent.
These unconscionable decisions undermine the laws that persistently require all schools to have dignified school infrastructure. Take Lukhozi High School – a school in the Eastern Cape that was promised infrastructure upgrades several years ago. The school has 7 classrooms and 6 working toilets to serve nearly 300 learners and is in a total state of disrepair. In recent years, two teachers at the school were injured after the ceilings in the classrooms collapsed. Previous cuts to the education infrastructure grant have pushed planned projects to provide infrastructure to the school off the list. These are the kinds of desperate cases that austerity budgeting turns its back on.
Similarly, Grade R – which the SONA affirmed is now compulsory – also remains underfunded by the National Treasury. Provinces are reneging on their obligation to provide basic education to these learners, not out of their own volition, but rather because they do not have the funds to do so.
Even the welcomed R9.2 billion investment into Early Childhood Development over the next three years is offset by the fact that Treasury had planned to allocate an additional R10 billion earlier.
The Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI) has been drained to a shadow of its former self. This year, it will only amount to R319 million, down from R1.2 billion last year and R6.5 billion in 2023.
The baseline allocations in the outer years for the Funza Lushaka bursary scheme have also been reduced.
All of these resources are necessary to give credence to the government’s claims that it aims to promote foundational learning and literacy, and invest in future skills to promote long-term growth. It makes no sense to boldly declare that the education sector is prioritising foundational learning to achieve greater learner outcomes if the system is not being resourced to do so.
Conclusion
Minister Godongwana claims that his austerity measures, or ‘prudent fiscal choices,’ have been necessary to afford the country a greater degree of sovereignty. In reality, however, Treasury has long ceded sovereignty to the whims of financial markets and private capital. It is evident in its congruence with IMF recommendations – but it is even more evident in the poor conditions of our schools, the high-pressure environments our teachers and lecturers face and the ongoing despair and hopelessness of our Black youth.
When parliament votes on this budget, we expect it to fulfil its duty by assessing the budget fairly against the constitutional obligations of the state. We expect them to interrogate the flawed assumptions presented by the National Treasury against the lived realities of our communities. The budget must fulfil its constitutional and statutory obligations. Grade R should be funded. The Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure should be funded. And retrogressive measures that inhibit access to Higher Education should be amended.
It makes no sense to boldly declare that we have turned a corner in our economic trajectory while still refusing to fund the key critical input that would enable us to develop further in the future.
End.
For enquiries, please contact Equal Education’s Communications Manager, Ayanda Sishi-Wigzell, ayanda@eualeduation.org.za, 076 879 3017.