Health & Education

Change is expected in South Africa’s education sector over the coming years. The sector receives a large share of the national budget, with some R189.5bn ($23.19bn), or 19% of all state expenditure, spent on education in the 2011/12 fiscal year. However, results have yet to materialise. The government has been eyeing different strategies to improve the education system and remove the regulatory and bureaucratic confusion challenging the sector. So far, the schooling system has shown signs of improvement, with the number of overcrowded public schools dropping from 50% to 24% between 2006 and 2011. South Africa currently offers universal health care via hospital access. But this standard of care is far lower than what those who can afford private care have access to. Therefore, the Department of Health is embarking on a multi-decade plan called the National Health Insurance (NHI) to provide better health care for citizens. The idea is to eventually ensure a higher standard of care for all South Africans, to eliminate the disease burdens complicating the challenge and to move from a system based on curing health problems to one in which prevention plays a larger role. This chapter contains interviews with Frank Thompson, Chief Executive, ADvTECH Group; and Adrian Gore, Chief Executive, Discovery Holdings.