Schools for rich battle with their sums

Many private schools have increased fees above inflation for this year, but two of the most expensive schools have kept fees just below the current rate.

The official inflation rate is 3.2%, according to statistics from November. The figure for December is expected this week.

One projected rate of inflation is 4.6%, according to the Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa (Isasa), which said it had consulted Azar Jammine, the chief economist at Econometrix.

Hilton College, in KwaZulu-Natal, increased its fees by 3%, from R321,890 last year to R331,550. Last year it increased fees by 7.8%.

The second-most expensive school, Michaelhouse, increased fees by 2.9% while another high-end private school, Kearsney College, increased fees by 4.5%.

Private schools, which were due to reopen on Tuesday and Wednesday, have delayed this until January 18 to await Friday's government announcement on lockdown levels. Curro schools, however, will reopen on Wednesday.

State schools reopen on January 27.

Mandla Mthembu, chair of the National Alliance of Independent Schools Associations, said schools should consider staggering the re-entry of pupils.

A survey by Isasa found that 37% of the 281 schools that participated levied fee increases of between 5% and 7.9%. Ten percent hiked fees by 8% and more.

Isasa, which has 793 member schools in SA, conducted a survey following inquiries about how its members were handling retrenchments, salary increases and cuts, and tuition fee increases.

Its executive director, Lebogang Montjane, said 53% of schools that responded had imposed a fee increase below or in line with inflation. "Previously we would expect 90% or more of our schools to increase their fees by 2% to 3% above the inflation rate."

Montjane said some schools had suspended part of a development levy charged to parents.

Of the Isasa schools, 61% of the 281 surveyed indicated they were increasing fees.

Some of the schools that did not increase fees were Bishops, Redhill School and St Stithians College. St Martin's School reduced fees for grade 8 pupils by R26,425, from R149,000 to R122,575.

Spark Schools and AdvTech did not increase fees for this year.

Curro spokesperson Mari Lategan said increases varied across its 177 schools.

Some of the other findings of the Isasa survey included:

• 25% of the schools retrenched staff last year and 5% were planning to this year;
• 37% imposed salary cuts last year; and
• 43% said staff would not get increases.

Of the 57% of schools that will be giving staff increases this year, staff at 3% of the schools will get a pay rise of 8% or more.

Late last year the government allocated R2.4bn to save governing body-appointed posts at struggling fee-paying state schools and private schools that received subsidies.

Peter Storrar, the director of marketing at Hilton College, said the school had spoken to families with Covid-related financial difficulty "in the hope of coming to an agreement on payment".

"Staff layoffs have not been considered and will not be considered for the foreseeable future, but salary increases have been frozen for the majority of staff for at least the first six months of 2021," he said.

Alan Thompson, headmaster of St Andrew's College in Makhanda (Grahamstown), said it held fees "to an absolute minimum" but that "even with diligent cost control and sacrifice, a fee increase was unavoidable".

His school's tuition fees for grades 8-12 were increased from R130,074 last year to R136,578.

He said the school had worked with parents last year and gave support to those who had been affected by the economic crisis.

Fiona Rogers, executive head of Roedean School in Johannesburg, said its biggest operating expense was teachers' salaries.

"We therefore had to take into account general inflation, increased Covid operating expenses and teachers' salaries in arriving at our fee increase of 3%."

She said the school was "aware of and empathetic to the financial challenges faced by most families and have tried to minimise and, where possible, reduce expenditure".