Tips to combat education crisis

Cape Town - The government has stressed the importance of education for the last few years and allocation of the huge amounts allocated to education borne this out. Education spent has been the single biggest item in the budget for years and much higher than, for instance, police and correctional services.

It is obvious that the education and the future of the youth is important, but where is it going wrong?

On this issue, many Fin24 users have complained about how the education budget is wasted and lamented the quality of schools, shortage of books and state of other infrastructure. The quality and discipline of teachers were also mentioned as problems.

Solutions included better controls at schools and more accountability. Some suggested higher subsidies to private schools because they seem to do the job better than government is able to do it.

The following letter sums up how Fin24 users feel about education:

“Dear Pravin,

In the past we have seen how you have allocated huge funds to education and health care. Sadly, SA citizens have witnessed how in certain instances, funds allocated have either been overspent, wasted or not spent at all.

I propose the following: Give big corporations an opportunity to build hospitals and schools. In exchange, give those businesses some tax relieve. In this way you are assured of speedy service delivery.

Secondly, I propose that you ask firms that have business interests outside SA to take 50 matriculants for international training and education every year. Once again, provide an incentive by way of tax relief.

Lastly, ask medium enterprises to invest money in paying teachers from abroad to come to our country to up-skill our teachers and improve their teaching proficiency. Give these businesses a funding opportunity to expand their businesses or tax relief.

If we were to do this, we will be addressing the following: Optimal use of funds, elimination of complacency in the government sector, the issue of skills shortage, improving the quality of education in public schools through skills transfer and breeding an environment where medium enterprises can grow into big corporations. 

Best regards from Puseletso Leboko.”

Carl van der Merwe is equally concerned about education, but offers a completely different solution:

“Firstly dramatically increase the taxes of the richest 1% of the population. Use this tax to provide free education. Education is the key to a better workforce which will become better entrepreneurs which will find an opportunity and start a business, employing more people and then paying more tax.

“This educated workforce builds a bigger middle class and a bigger middle class drives increased spending and thus the economy,” he writes.

He says that tax relief to business is not the way to go. Tax them as they should be taxed and use the money for education.

 - Fin24

* Tell Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan what you'd like to see in his budget address on February 26.