Elswood Primary School, Cape Town

There are over 26 000 schools in South Africa with 12 Million learners in the 11 Provinces in South Africa. Schooling in South Africa is compulsary. It is an institution designed to provide learning spaces and environments for the teaching of pupils by teachers. 95 percent of schools in South Africa are runned by the Department of Education. 5 percent of these schools are independently or privately owned. The Eastern Cape, Kwazulu Natal and Limpopo have the highest number of learners by Province. Foundation Phase has the highest number of learners (33%) followed by Senior Phase which has 23%. A class has 40 puplis on average in Government schools and 30 pupils in privately owned schools. Government schools are subsidised by the Department of Education where school fees are lower compared to Private schools where fees are much higher. Many of the government schools have feeding programmes and scholar transport, especially in the rural areas.