Johannesburg — EVERY year when matric comes around, we hear about plucky schools in dirt-poor communities that achieve a decent pass rate. But the reality is that education remains heavily inequitable, with worse resourcing and outcomes for poor, black and female children.

In 2003, only 12% of Africans who took matric got a university exemption, compared with 51% of white learners.

The data from Statistics SA's 2005 General Household Survey begin to provide a picture of what's wrong. They show that the dropout rate rises sharply for children older than 15 and that it is significantly higher for poor households.

Moreover, poor children still face unacceptable conditions in school, particularly in the former Bantustan areas.

Almost all children stay in school to age 14 but among older children the dropout rate rises sharply.

About 15% of 17-year-olds do not attend school, and 30% of 18-year-olds. Moreover, of dropouts aged 14-19, a third said they had only primary education, and only a quarter had completed Grade 10.

Asked why they did not attend school, a third of the dropouts said they could not afford the fees.

One in seven said they were working at home or in a job or had too many family commitments. About 8% said they left school because of pregnancy.

It is not surprising, then, that the dropout rate correlates closely with household budgets.

For the poorest quintile of households, which spend less than R400 a month, 25% of children aged 14-19 did not attend school. The share fell to 20% for the next three quintiles.

For the richest quintile, with budgets of more than R2500 a month, nonattendance was 13%, and it was only 7% for households spending more than R10000 a month.

These figures should improve with implementation of the no-fees school policy but the effects of the policy will be reflected only in the next General Household Survey.

The findings on why children leave school help explain the differences in the dropout rate by gender. About 23% of girls aged 15-19 were out of school, compared with only 16% of boys.

Even where children stayed in school, fees proved a burden. In the poorest 40% of households, with budgets of less than R800 a month, 15% of children said school fees were a problem.

The amounts families paid in fees seem quite modest -- until one compares them with household budgets. Then they loom large.

Only 1% of all households said they paid no fees, 85% paid less than R500 and 10% paid more than R1000 a year. In the poorest 40% of households, almost one family in 10 paid more than R200 a year in fees.

Many households paid school fees even though their children went hungry. A fifth of all families said their children went hungry at least sometimes. Of these, almost all paid some school fees, and just less than one in 10 paid more than R200 a year.

The effects of school fees go beyond the financial burden on poor households. The best schools, mostly formerly white institutions, charge the highest. About 6% of children in the survey paid more than R3000 a year.

As a rule, these schools effectively refuse to place children who can't pay, replicating the inequalities in education inherited from apartheid on a class rather than a racial basis. And which school you can afford has a huge effect on your children's education.

Children from poorer households were far more likely than their richer compatriots to attend schools with no books, too few teachers and inadequate buildings.

Children in households spending less than R1200 a month were six times as likely as those from households with more than R10000 a month to say they had no books or teachers in school. Among the poor households, one in five said they had no books, one in 10 said they had poor facilities and one in 20 said they had no teacher.

The pattern of inequality explains why, although SA spends more of the gross domestic product on public primary and secondary education than most equivalent countries, it ends up with far worse results when pupils' competencies and job prospects are measured.

Unless the shortcomings in education for the poor are addressed, a more equitable and productive society will remain beyond our reach.

--Makgetla is sector strategies co-ordinator in the Presidency. This article reflects her personal views only.