KZN Education receives biggest slice of provincial budget

Finance MEC Peggy Nkonyeni tabled the 2023/24 budget in the provincial legislature in Pietermaritzburg on Friday.

She said the outstanding 2022 matric results, where the province obtained 83% pass rate, justifies the allocation of R60.6 billion to the department.

It constitutes a 41.5% share of the provincial budget.

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"Budget reprioritisation was undertaken to ensure that there are ongoing improvements in this regard, such as improving the quality of Grade R programmes with a focus on literacy and numeracy, especially reading, as well as teacher development and improving schools' infrastructure,” Nkonyeni said.

Nkonyeni said the Department of Education will spend some of the money on the construction of new schools in areas where there are no schools as well as replacing entirely damaged and dilapidated institutions.

"The department provides new and replacement schools in order to improve access to education within communities."