The Gauteng Department of Education is a

provincial government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, o ...

department under the

Gauteng Provincial Government The government of Gauteng province in South Africa consists of a unicameral Gauteng Provincial Legislature, legislature elected by proportional representation, and an executive branch headed by a Premier of Gauteng, Premier who is elected by th ...

responsible for overseeing and regulating the basic education system in the

Gauteng Gauteng ( , ; Sotho-Tswana languages, Sotho-Tswana for 'place of gold'; or ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts f ...

province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

in accordance with the South African Schools Act of 1996. The department was established in 1994 to replace the education department of the dissolved

Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name ''Transvaal''. * South African Republic (1856–1902; ...

province. The Department is administered by

Member of the Executive Council In South Africa, the Executive Council of a province is the cabinet of the provincial government. The Executive Council consists of the Premier and five to ten other members,'' Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996'', Chapter 6: "P ...

(MEC)

Matome Chiloane Matome Kopano Chiloane is a South African politician who has been the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Education and Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation in Gauteng since July 2024. He previously served as the MEC for Education from Octo ...

, while the current Acting Head of Department (HoD) is Rufus Mmutlana. In the fiscal year 2023/24, the Gauteng Department of Education was slated to receive a budget allocation of R63.4 billion to bolster the department's overarching mission of delivering high-quality and readily accessible education within the province. Its official abbreviation is GDE. More recently, the department has been criticised for not being able to accommodate the growing number of pupils in the province. It has attempted to use an online registration system, but, this too has been criticised. For the 2018/2019 financial year, it received a financially unqualified audit and recorded irregular expenditure of over R1,2 billion. Irregular expenditure for the 2019/2020 financial year once again topped R1 billion, while R431 million was spent in three months to disinfect schools. The Democratic Alliance cited these expenses as proof that the department is unable to manage its finances.

References

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External links

Gauteng Department: Education
Government of Gauteng