A Quick Summary of the 2014 Budget Speech and How It’s Going to Affect Your Education

In Parliament on Wednesday, South African Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, announced the 2014 budget review. From an educational perspective, here is a quick breakdown of how the 2014 budget review will affect all South African’s:

·         Education was allocated R 253.8 billion for 2014/2015 financial year.

o   R177.6 billion for basic education

o   R29.9 billion for tertiary education

o   R23.4 billion for vocational and further education

o   R12.3 billion for education administration

o   R10.6 billion for culture and recreation.

·         The goals for basic education includes rebuilding schools that use temporary, informal or traditional (i.e. mud houses) buildings. Although many schools have already been built this year, 433 schools will be rebuilt over a medium-term period. R2.94 billion has been allocated for this purpose.

·         R34.3 billion has been allocated to improving school infrastructures.

·         Gordhan announced that there will be in increase to the budget for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NASFAS) and will amount to R19.4 billion over the next three years.

o   This means that 292 000 FET bursaries

o   …and 236 000 university bursaries can be allocated by 2016/2017

·         The budget also ensured that R78 billion is allocated to university subsidies.

·         The Department of Higher Education and Training will also be working with tertiary institutions to work on student retention, since there is such a high number of dropouts.

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