Pretoria - In the past 15 years, there has been a general increase in the percentage of individuals from the age five up to 15 attending educational institutions, the Census 2011 results has indicated.
The five to seven-year-old age group showed the most significant progress in terms of increased enrolment rates between 1996 and 2011, according to the results released by Statistics SA on Tuesday.
Enrolment for the five-year-old age group was at 22.5% at Census 1996, 45.6% at Census 2001 and had leaped to 81.2% in the latest results.
For the six-year-old age group, these figures were at 49.1% in 1996, 70.3% in 2001 and 92.7% in 2011, while for the seven-year-old group it was at 73.1% in 1996, 88.4% in 2001 and 96.1% in 2011.
"The vast majority of students in South Africa attend public educational institutions. Only 5% of those aged 5-24 years, who were attending educational institutions in 2001, attended private institutions as opposed to the 7.3% in 2011," the Census 2011 outcomes indicate.
There was a general increase in private school attendance across all the provinces, with the highest in Gauteng at 16.7%, followed by the Western Cape at 7.5% and the Free State at 6.4%.
All other provinces had private institution attendance rates of less than 5%.
An increase in black Africans aged between 5-24 years attending educational institutions was also recorded. Figures for this population group increased steadily from, 70.7% in 1996 to 72.1% in 2001, to 73.9% in 2011.
Attendance rates among coloured, Indian/Asian and white population groups also increased.
The results also showed that the proportion of individuals aged 20, who have no schooling, halved from 19.1% in 1996 to 8.6% in 2011.
In addition, the percentage of individuals aged 20 years and older that received no formal education has decreased steadily between 1996 and 2011.
In 1996, 17% of males in this age group had no formal education. This decreased to 15.5% in 2001 and further to 7.2% in 2011.
Among females, the percentage with no formal education declined from 20.9% in 1996, to 20% in 2001 and 9.9% in 2011. - SAnews.gov.za
