This is not only for all the reasons we are familiar with, but because, as Michael Spence, the recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, has noted, “in a world in which knowledge and connectivity are increasingly the basis for value creation, failures in the education system are the surest form of exclusion there is.” It is also because the Bank, in fulfilling its mandate of price stability, touches the lives of every South African, directly or indirectly, and the greater the financial literacy in a society is, the better the understanding of the economy and the more effective is the inclusion in how society functions.
So bear with me as I revisit some of South Africa’s educational facts and figures with statistics drawn from the National Planning Commission’s work. As the NPC points out, education is one of the Millennium Development Goals. It is also a prominent feature of South Africa’s Constitution.