Abstract:

According to the South African Schools Act of 1996, the State is prescribed to fund schools from public revenue. However, limited financial resources and budgetary constraints are barriers for schools to provide quality education to learners, especially among the historically disadvantaged schools. The National Norms and Standards for School Funding policy makes provision for the State to fund according to quintile rankings, where poor schools ranked quintile 1 and 2, and more recently, quintile 3 schools are declared no-fee schools and are provided much more funding than quintile 4 and 5 affluent schools.. Although this policy addresses equity and social justice, the funds allocated are not sufficient for schools to provide quality education. More recently, the State has tactfully appealed to corporate institutions to channel available funds to South African public schools. Legislation such as the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Act of 2003 stipulates that corporate institutions should spend at least one percent of its profit after tax on socio-economic development. Corporate institutions have the option of directing funds to educational institutions or steering funds to institutions outside of education. This paper examines the rationale behind corporate institutions providing funding to public schools: Some of the corporate institutions may want to realise economic growth over the long-term; some hope to gain or sustain consumer and employee loyalty in the short/medium-term. A qualitative research method was used to explore the motivation for corporate institutions channeling funds to public schools. This study was anchored on the assumption that the sustainability of corporate funding in public schools is dependent on the achievement of high returns (or excessive profits). Major findings revealed that corporate institutions use stringent criteria to provide funds to schools; community relations are strengthened when schools are provided with additional funding; and the sustainability of funds in public schools is potentially dependent on the level of employee and community involvement.

Keywords:

Corporate, funding, social responsibility, state, public schools, funding proposal.