Pretoria - Over 70% of people aged between seven and 24 are attending educational institutions within South Africa, a slightly lower figure than in previous years, said Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).
"Nationally, 73.6% of persons aged 7-24 were attending educational institutions. This is slightly lower than in 2002 when the attendance rate was 73.9%," Statistics SA said as it released the General Household Survey (GHS) 2011.
According to the report, a lack of money for fees remained the primary reason for many people in this age group that were not studying.
"More than two-thirds (35.9%) of premature school leavers in this age group blamed a lack of money for not studying. The comparable figure is as high as 41.6% in North West," Stats SA said in the report released on Thursday.
The report found that government's "no fee school" system as well as other funding mechanisms were beginning to show effect. The "no fee school" system was implemented in 2007.
"The percentage of learners who reported that they paid no tuition fees increased from 0.7% in 2002 to 55.6% in 2011," said the GHS. A high proportion of non-payers were in Limpopo (89.7%) and the Eastern Cape (71.8%).
In 2011, 94% of the surveyed pupils were attending public schools with 74.2% of the learners that attended public schools benefitting from feeding schemes. "This percentage has increased from 66.2% in 2009," noted the report.
Learners in Limpopo (94.7%), Northern Cape (86.7%) and Eastern Cape (84.6%) were the most likely to benefit from this programme.
Officially known as the National School Nutrition Programme, the programme came into effect in 2002.
Meanwhile, the number of learners indicating that they experienced corporal punishment at school increased from 16.8% in 2009 to 17.2% in 2011. "Very large increases are evident in Northern Cape (25.5% to 30.2%) and Limpopo (14.6% to 19.3%). This form of punishment was most commonly experienced in Eastern Cape (30.2%) and KwaZulu-Natal (22.5%)."
Approximately 652 869 students were enrolled at higher educational institutions during 2011. Almost 65.4% of these students were black.
"However, proportionally this group is still underrepresented. Only 3.5% of Africans aged 18 to 29 years were studying as opposed to 14.9% of Indian/Asian individuals and 20% of the white population in this age group. Only 3.8% of the coloured population was studying during 2011," noted the report.
The study also found that more than 91.9% of South Africans are able to read and write. The adult literacy rate, however, lags behind the average in provinces such as Mpumalanga and Limpopo where respectively 86.8% and 87% of populations were literate.
The GHS has been performed annually by Stats SA since 2002. It was introduced to address a need identified by government to determine the level of development in the country.
