Pretoria - Access to education has continued on its upward trend the 2009 General Household Survey (GHS) has found.
Released by Statisitics South Africa (Stats SA) on Thursday, the survey which is designed to measure specific features of the living conditions of South African households found that the uptake of educational services and opportunities improved.
Stats SA said that increased fiscal support for education reflected positively on the percentage of learners who do not pay education fees. In 2009, 44.5 percent of learners did not pay fees compared to 2002's 0.7 percent.
According to the annual survey, among people of 20 years and older the percentage of those with a matric certificate as their highest level of education rose from 2002's 21.5 to 26.1 percent in 2009. Additionally people of this age group with tertiary qualification also increased from 9.2 percent to 10.9 percent.
When coming to illiteracy functional illiteracy rates declined from 27.9 to 19.7 percent and when coming to provinces Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West and the Northern Cape remain the provinces with the highest illiteracy rates.
When coming to children aged 0 to 4 years, 30 percent were found to be attending early childhood development institutions like crSche with the most numbers found in Gauteng and the Free State.
Additionally 81 percent of people aged seven to 24 attended school with the lack of money for fees being the main reason for people not studying, said Kefiloe Masiteng, Stats SA DDG for population and social statistics.
Of those who were studying 93 percent attended public schools while 62 percent of people in public schools received food at school.
The study also found that 20 percent experienced violence, corporal punishment or verbal abuse at school with the highest complaints registered in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State.
When coming to tertiary education 62 percent of African students attended higher education institutions.
