Finance minister Enoch Godongwana has placed education at the centre of the 2026/2027 medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF), with basic education emerging as a clear funding priority.
For this MTEF, education (basic and higher departments) and sport, arts and culture constitute the largest component at 23.7% (R527.2bn) of the consolidated R2.67-trillion government expenditure.
Of the R527.2bn budget, R344.7bn was allocated to basic education, and NSFAS will get R54.3bn, while university transfers sit on R50.5bn.
These are the biggest allocations, followed by skills development levy institutions, education administration, and technical and vocational education and training.
The allocations have been cautiously welcomed by players in the basic education sector in the Eastern Cape, one of the provinces which has for years lagged behind in school infrastructure.
The Daily Dispatch has over the years reported on schools across the province struggling with infrastructure, including mud schools, dilapidated structures built by communities way before 1994 and pit toilets.
Activist Petros Majola welcomed the allocations for basic education but said it was hoped it would solve infrastructure problems.
“We still have mud schools in the province despite the commitments that by that year, by this year, we would have stopped talking about mud schools and dilapidated infrastructure,” he said.
Majola said to have a conducive teaching and learning environment, infrastructure development was important and he wished the budget solved the province’s challenges.
“When they divide the budget, they must know that there is an Eastern Cape province which has infrastructural problems.”
He said the challenges faced by the province were aggravated by floods.
The legislature’s education portfolio committee chair, Monde Sondaba, said as the legislature, they wished the budget would address infrastructure.
“Because of our historical background, we are still behind in terms of infrastructure, even with ablution facilities,” he said.
Majola said more investment was also needed on information and communications technology and teacher development.
The DA’s Horatio Hendricks cautioned that the province should not be too optimistic until it saw the full breakdown.
“Remember we have got, according to the MEC, a R72bn backlog on infrastructure,” he said.
He said they were concerned that a small portion of the infrastructure grant over the years had gone to actual “brick and mortar”.
As part of the basic education budget, the Treasury has moved to protect SA’s most vulnerable children, providing extra funds to expand the provision of early childhood development (ECD) and giving an inflation-beating boost to the school meals programme.
ECD education services are provided to children under the age of four and are aimed at ensuring they are ready for school when they enter grade R.
An additional R12.8bn has been set aside for ECD to provide services to an additional 300,000 children over the next three years.
The daily subsidy remains unchanged at R24 a child.
Expenditure on ECD will increase by 13.8% over the medium term, rising from R12.2bn in 2025/2026 to R18bn in 2028/2029.
In a statement after the tabling of the budget, education minister Siviwe Gwarube welcomed the allocation by Godongwana.
“Any additional funding directed toward basic education is a positive and necessary step.
“It signals an understanding that education is not merely expenditure, but an investment in human capital, economic growth, and long-term national stability,” Gwarube said.
She noted, however, that while new allocations would provide important relief, they had to be viewed against the scale of financial pressures facing provincial education departments across the country.
“Years of constrained budgets, driven by a decade of fiscal consolidation between 2014 and 2024 and compounded by prolonged economic stagnation, have placed increasing strain on the system.
“Provincial education departments are currently grappling with rising learner enrolment, increasing personnel costs, and growing demands for infrastructure, learner support materials, scholar transport and school nutrition programmes,” she said.
Gwarube said that in many provinces, vacant teaching posts remained unfilled as departments attempted to remain within budget limits, placing pressure on class sizes and teaching time.
There was a R120bn infrastructure shortfall to build additional classrooms and toilets to deal with current overcrowding.
“These pressures are structural and cumulative.
“While additional allocations are welcome, they do not fully close the funding gap that has developed over many years,” Gwarube said.
Additional reporting by TimesLIVE and Business Day
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