Education Minister Kader Asmal today announced far reaching steps starting with the abolition of compulsory school fees in line with his Action Plan that aims to increase access to free and quality education for all children.

The Action Plan was developed following a comprehensive study on the “Review of the Financing, Resourcing and Cost of Education in Public Schools,” whose report was released by the department of education in March this year.

Asmal said the Review was a comprehensive and detailed exercise “highlighting practices within the education system and society that drove the cost of education up and led to the marginalisation of learners in a range of public schools”.

The minister’s Action Plan was presented to Cabinet, which accepted it in principle on Wednesday last week.

Addressing a press conference in Cape Town this morning, Asmal said proper implementation of the Action Plan would result in greater inter-provincial equity so that learners with similar levels of poverty, for instance, Gauteng and Eastern Cape, would receive the same minimum level of school funding.

He said this would also result in the abolition of compulsory school fees, where adequate levels of resourcing is reached, for 40% of learners in the poorest schools.

He said government would fork out a minimum basic package of R450 per poor learner structured along national norms.

He said this would be twice current levels of funding that would be allocated per learner for non-personnel recurrent items, starting with the poorest 20% of learners. This would be mainly for school-based expenditure on textbooks, stationery, water, electricity, maintenance and teaching equipment, the minister said.

Asmal said schools that were less poor would continue to charge fees in order to fund their perceived quality choices.

“Government is confident that these schools will implement both the letter and spirit of the law. It is hoped that this will strengthen our goal of a democratic, united and non-racial public school system where those who wish to supplement, the minimum package provided by government, are able to do so with their own funds,” said the minister.

He said this would strengthen the exemption processes in less poor schools and the granting of automatic fee exemptions to learners who qualified for certain social service grants and payments.

Last week Cabinet agreed with the strategy and said it would ensure that children from poor families were treated in the same way in all parts of the country and that during the next financial year, systems would be put in place to phase the Action Plan starting with 20% of learners in the poorest schools in the country. –BuaNews.