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Adult Education and Training Act, 2000 (Act No. 52 of 2000)

Notices

National Norms and Standards for Funding Adult Learning Centres (NSF·ALC)

Part 1

2. Introduction

 

Legal and Policy Background

 

1. The ABET delivery sub-system is being progressively put in place as part of the broader transformation process in the education system. The institutionalisation of the delivery system is being implemented through the setting up of governance structures, the professionalisation of ABET educators, the development of curriculum and standards, the establishment of quality assurance mechanism and the setting up of an ABET assessment system. These components are now consolidated by the development of these Norms and Standards for Funding of Adult Learning Centres ("NSF-ALC").

 

2. Section 29 of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 establishes the right to education in these terms:

Everyone has the right—

(a) to a basic education, including adult basic education; and
(b) to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible" (section 29 (1)).

 

3. The ABET Act, 2000 (Act No. 52 of 2000) ("the Act") lays the basis for the development of norms and standards for funding. Section 22 places an obligation on the Minister to develop norms and standards specifically for the funding of public Adult Learning Centres (ALCs).

 

4. Section 29 of the Act gives the Minister the prerogative to develop norms and standards or conditions for granting subsidies to private ALCs.

 

5. The Act aims at establishing "a national co-ordinated adult basic education and training system which promotes co-operative governance and provides for programme-based adult basic education and training" (Preamble to the Act).

 

Funding Challenges

 

6. The Provincial Education Departments (PEDs) are the primary Funders of ABET. PEDs are themselves financed largely through shares of the national Equitable Share Fund. This fund is distributed as general grants.

 

Provincial priorities determine the sectoral distribution of these funds, over which distribution the national level has only limited legal and constitutional authority, though it has considerable potential intellectual and moral leadership authority.

 

7. Current PED resourcing of ALCs is unpredictable. It is unclear on what basis budget allocations are made to public ALCs and, therefore, fluctuate from one year to the next. This creates challenges for programme planning and implementation.

 

The need for change

 

8. Section 21(3) of the Act obliges the Member of the Executive Council to provide sufficient information to ALCs regarding funding. The implementation of the section within the framework of the norms and standards for funding ALCs should enable predictability and stability in the funding of centres. This would ensure that ALCs are able to plan properly within the funding framework developed in this document.

 

9. The ABET Act recognizes ALCs as legal persona. This enables ALCs to determine their mission and the management of their affairs. The allocation of funding to ALCs will be a key lever for consolidating this legal status.

 

10. Combined with the Act's injunction that the ABET sector ought to be programme-based, the funding to which Section 22 refers is then to be interpreted as funding a public ALC's various programmes, that is, funding that provides each public ALC with a meaningful budget. Thus, the call of the Act is for quite a radical reconstruction of the financial aspects of the ABET sub-sector.

 

11. Public funding of ALCs must involve a certain level of standardisation of offerings. The state cannot have open-ended commitments to funding; it must have a clear, measurable sense of what it is paying for, and who is producing at an adequate level. At the same time, adult education worldwide is characterized by clients whose needs are not always standard. At present, experimental and non-formal adult education takes place with largely private funding, or with non-normed funding by public bodies other than Provincial Departments of Education, with the state's education authorities playing largely a quality assurance role. But there is a social need for public funding that can be for programmes that are differentiated and non-formal yet accountable. This form of funding is catered for in the document.

 

Reconceptualising ABET provisioning

 

12. Resources and capacity must be made available in Provinces to set targets and support ABET provisioning as well as PALCs. In particular:
(a) PEDs must enhance their management capabilities in the Provincial Education Departments and as well as in the PALCs, since a shift to formula-based funding will be accompanied by greater institutional autonomy for these PALCs.
(b) PEDs must enhance effective financial monitoring of PALCs programme budgets, PALC's and NGO's.
(c) PEDs must vastly improve the management information systems, where information reaching PEDs and the DoE is a by-product of good management at the PALC level. The current system would need to be strengthened through the development of additional instruments and systems.

 

13. The development of a new funding framework implies that current modalities of programme and institutional delivery need to change.

Changes envisaged are as follows:

(a) Reconfigured ALC governance structure in accordance with section 10 of the Act. A process of an institutional audit would be done so as to gather the required data for the merging of ALCs.
(b) It is envisaged that merged ALCs comprising various sites would be established with a diversity of programmes targeting adult learners. These programmes would allow for the provision of skills to a variety of adult learner needs.
(c) Flexible modes of delivery such as open learning, technology based programmes and contact mode would characterise the reconfigured adult learning centres.

 

Scope of applicability

 

14. These NSF-ALC apply:
(a) Uniformly in all provinces, and are intended to prevail in terms of section 146 (2) of the Constitution.
(b) To public adult learning centres, as defined in the ABET Act.
(c) To any not-for-profit private adult learning centres, in terms of the ABET Subsidies and Grants Framework as set out in paragraph 47, consistent with section 29(1) of the Act. Section 29 states that the Minister may, by notice in the Government Gazette, determine norms and standards or conditions for the granting of subsidies to private centres after consultation with the Council of Education Ministers and with the concurrence of the Minister of Finance.

 

15. These NSF-ALC do not apply to funds raised by public centres through their own efforts in terms of section 23 (c) of the Act; except as in paragraph 46.

 

16. The new funding approach will comprise two key elements:
16.1 funding of programme-based ABET, and
16.2 funding in the form of the subsidies and grants framework.