Equity and redress, in and through education, are fundamental commitments of the new South African democratic government that ensued in 1994 after a brutal and protracted history of colonial and apartheid segregation and oppression denied the majority black population the fundamental right to equitable and quality education. A raft of ambitious…

The South African school education landscape is distinctly uneven as it relates to school financing. The state's attempt at differentiated funding via the quintile system is vaunted as an initiative to address the needs of poor schools. It parades as a commitment to a redress agenda. Since implementation, the socioeconomic demography has changed…

The advent of democracy in South Africa triggered notable reforms to the financing of quality education, and curriculum design and innovation. The ulterior motive behind this study was to underscore the correlation between inadequate financial resources and learners' achievement. School finance reform was found to contribute to learner achievement…

Successive governments, both military and civilian regimes, funded senior high school education in Ghana to increase access and improve quality since the nation attained independence on 6 March 1957. In the study reported on here we adopted a quantitative research method using secondary data from five public senior high schools in the Wa…

Since the advent of democracy in 1994, access to quality and equitable education still remains a challenge in the Gauteng province. As an intervention to improve access and quality of learning in all schools, especially township schools, the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) declared schools across Quintiles 1 to 3 throughout the province to…

The Amended National Norms and Standards for School Funding (ANNSSF) policy of 2006 introduced a funding model to address equity in public schooling. Schools are ranked into one of five quintiles of which quintile 1 represents the poorest schools and quintile 5 the most affluent. The ANNSSF policy proposes that the state provide more funding for…

Efficient and equitable use of financial resources has been one of the education policy objectives to achieve quality in education. Subsequently, the achievement of efficient and equitable use of financial resources in schools depends on the principals' understanding of their role in managing financial resources. However, evidence spanning…

With the promulgation of the South African Schools Act, public education in South Africa was decentralised and communities were made responsible for the governance of public schools. White Paper 1 on Education and Training confirmed the inability of the state to meet the financial requirements of public education. Despite the fact that school…

The implementation of inclusive education in South African schools has resulted in more demands being placed on them to make provision for the inclusion of learners with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms. This has brought about substantial changes regarding school financing in order to cater for a diverse learner population. This…

In this paper, we review literature on the financing of primary and secondary education in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with a view to contributing some insights about the extent to which the region can achieve the United Nations' (UN) Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4). At the heart of SDG 4 of the UN 2030 Agenda is the desire to achieve equity…

To realise the ideal of quality inclusive education, proper financial management is vital. Existing literature indicates that the mismanagement of school funds is largely due to principals and the school governing bodies (SGB) in many schools not having good working relationships with stakeholders and lacking the necessary financial skills, more…

The disparity in the socio-economic status of South Africa has forced the government to adopt a funding policy for public secondary schools. The policy is based on funding schools considered to be poor because they are in poverty-stricken communities. Most of these schools lack infrastructure, and physical and financial resources to be run…

In this article I report on the findings of an empirical study conducted to show the merits of integrating equitable learning by members of the South African School Governing bodies (SGBs) in managing the physical and financial resources. Within the interpretivist paradigm and utilising a qualitative descriptive phenomenological design, the data…

In the study reported on here the problem of inadequacies in educational provisioning among public schools that has a negative influence on teachers' productivity and learners' academic outcomes was examined. The primary objective of this study was to examine teachers' and principals' perceptions on the influence of educational provision on…

Drawing on the quintile system of categorising schools, South African public schools are bifurcated into no-fee and fee-paying schools. Emerging research has shown that school principals in both categories of schools encounter several challenges with regard to school funding. In this article, we employ contingency leadership theory to examine how…