Notes
Some key characteristics of the person recorded as head of household have been copied across to the household file. These are: gender, age, population group, highest education level, employment status and occupation.
On household and personal questionnaires, questions were asked on:
• Highest school class/standard completed
• Any technical or artisan certificate, diploma or degree completed at an educational institution
• Whether currently attending school, college, technikon or university full or part-time
The variable ‘Highest education level’ summarises the information from the various questions on both questionnaires.
South Africa has twelve years of formal schooling. These are currently referred to as Grade 1 to Grade 12. In some cases a preparatory year, Grade 0, is also available for children who have not yet started formal
schooling.
Prior to the introduction of the new grades there were a number of different systems for referring to the different school years. One system referred to Grades 1 and 2 as sub-standards A and B, and Grades 3-12 as standards 1 to 10. Another system referred to the last five years as Forms 1-5. In all systems the twelfth year is usually referred to as the matriculation year. In most systems the seventh year indicated the end of
primary schooling.
The questionnaire included the example, when asking for certificates, diplomas or degree, of ‘e.g. teacher’s diploma, BA degree or NTC III’). Diplomas and post-school certificates are sometimes available to those without matric. Higher education thus does not necessarily imply completion of formal schooling. In the publications post-school without matric is in the same category as post-school with matric.
The category ‘Less than matric & qual’ is only applicable to people enumerated on household or personal questionnaires as information on the level of schooling of people with higher qualifications isn’t available from the special enumeration questionnaires. A problem with coding for special enumeration questionnaires meant that, originally, the same code was used for the categories ‘No schooling’ and ‘Other higher qualification’ – in the final data, persons 16 and younger were set to ‘No schooling’ while other persons were set to ‘Other higher qualification’.