Deputy Chairperson, the current state of quintiles is as follows. Quintiles are still used to determine whether the schools may charge school fees or not. They are also used to differentiate the amount of funding allocated to schools in a pro-poor manner. The following are the 2010 national quintile amounts: R855 per learner in quintile 1; R784 per learner in quintile 2; R641 per learner in quintile 3; R428 per learner in quintile 4; and R147 per learner in quintile 5.
For the benefit of the hon members of the House, quintiles are basically ranked on a scale of poverty. What is happening - in fact, this is the reason the hon member has asked this question; and thanks, Mr Gunda, for doing so - is that there has been a dramatic change in the learner population of those schools. Whilst schools might have infrastructure that could appropriately rank it as a quintile 4 or 5 school, the learner population is so poor that indeed it should not be so. This is a concern that we share with the MECs for education.
The entire quintile system is being reviewed. As I speak to you right now, quintiles 1, 2 and 3 have been reduced or contracted into one quintile. This was not in terms of law, but was in terms of a policy decision that was taken by the Ministry as well as the MECs for education. We are looking at quintiles 4 and 5. In fact, we have a law that allows an MEC for education to change a quintile. For example, if it is quintile 5, the MEC for education may change it to quintile 4 or to quintile 3.
We can also celebrate the fact that not very long ago - some three years ago - schools in some provinces were receiving something like R250 to R350 per learner. Now the norm is not less than R700. In fact, it's above R800 per learner, which means funding has improved.
So, quintiles 1, 2 and 3 have, as I've indicated, been contracted. They are all beneficiaries of the nutrition scheme. They all receive better and more appropriate funding. They also have the benefits of weighted advantage in terms of educators and administrators of services in those schools. The review process has not been completed. The moment it is completed, it will be presented to parliamentary committees for consideration, debate and discussion so that they can make recommendations to the department before we finalise it.
We could also say to you that as a result of this dramatic change in terms of learner population in schools, funding - which is going to be pro-poor, obviously - would be reviewed as well. So, there are two processes. One is the review of the quintile system, and the second is the pro-poor funding that has to take place to deal with the consequences of, amongst other things, migration. We spoke about migration. Here's another example of how migration changes the nature of a system in terms of funding and otherwise. So, thank you very much for raising this question. I do hope the response is of some assistance to you. Thank you.