By Mantshele wa ga Tau
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More and more South Africans are getting educated and age entry into the education system has become younger. The number of students completing their tertiary education in time has also increased.
This is according to the results of the Census 2001 survey released in Pretoria, today.
The Census was conducted on October 9-10 2001, with over 100 000 enumerators visiting more than 10 million households across the country as well a hostels, hotels, hospitals, prisons and the homeless.
The Census report suggests that South Africa is winning the fight against illiteracy and it says access to education in all nine provinces has increased, to the point of six to eight percent of access to tertiary education in the country.
According to the Census report of 1996, the first in a democratic set up, over 90 percent of children of school-going age had enrolled to attend school.
But, the 2001 report indicates that the figure has increased to about 95 percent and attributes the improvement to government's policy of free and compulsory education for all children from the age of six.
The Census report has however also found that education access in former homelands such as the Transkei had declined.
Statistician-General Pali Lehohla today said the survey had managed to reach people living in households across the country, as well as those in hostels, hotels, hospitals and all other types of communal quarters and even the former homelands.
Mr Lehohla said the Census report was the most powerful tool every country in the world used for its development planning and management.
'In 2001, South Africans had a massive access to telephone facilities, including cellular phones, at a percentage of 42 percent of households, as compared to only 29 percent in 1996,' the report said.
It recorded a sharp increase in the use of phones in all the provinces.
Chairperson for the South African Statistics Council Hilary Southall estimated the cost of the population census to be about R1 billion and said that was justifiable considering the benefits of the project.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel commented on the statistics, saying the findings would help South Africans to discuss issues raised in the report.
He said the Census report, which will be free to all, should be used and promoted as widely as possible. - BuaNews
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