Place, race and language: Secondary school 'choice' in South Africa's Gauteng province

Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP03/2023
Publication date: November 2023
Author(s):
Abstract:

This paper uses 2021 and 2022 school-level administration data to examine the relationship between primary and high school locations to determine whether high-quality secondary schools still mostly draw learners selectively from nearby 'feeder' primary schools, and as a result affect racial diversity in enrolments. We find that race is still a powerful predictor of access to high-quality secondary schools in South Africa. Gauteng's poorest-performing schools are home to mostly Black and Coloured learners, while its best-performing schools have an over-representation of White and Asian/Indian learners (relative to their overall population proportions in Gauteng). The findings in this paper suggest that the uneven distributions of high-quality schools, feeder zone rules and affordability constraints prevent many South African learners from enrolling in high-quality schools.

JEL Classification:

I24, I25, I28

Keywords:

School choice, education quality, South Africa, inequality

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