EDUCATION-SWAZILAND: School Funds for AIDS orphans So Near – Yet So Far

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, May 8 2004 (IPS) - Swazi school children returned to their hostels Friday (May 7) in preparation for the second term of the academic year. However, a question mark hangs over the fate of thousands of AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children who may not be permitted to continue their schooling this term.

In a speech delivered at the opening of parliament last month, King Mswati the Third said, “We will continue to do whatever we can do to ensure that no child is deprived of a basic education.” Swaziland is Africa’s last absolute monarchy.

“Government bursary funds last year helped many children who otherwise would not have gone to school. There will be a further allocation to the school bursary fund this year of 20 million rand (about 2.8 million dollars),” added the king. This allocation brought the total value of the fund to 5.1 million dollars.

In January, Education Minister Constance Simelane promised that government would use this fund to finance the education of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) – and ordered headmasters to admit these pupils to schools. The Ministry of Health estimates that there are around 40,000 such children in Swaziland.

But with money for the fund still locked in treasury vaults, the Swaziland School Headteachers Association resolved in a meeting last week that any child whose fees had not been paid would not be allowed back in the classroom.

“Parents struggle to pay their children’s fees, and it is unfair for them to assume the burden of orphans because government has not lived up to its commitments,” said the headteachers’ association in a statement.

Money for the bursary fund can only be released once the budget has been approved by parliament, which is currently in the midst of an indefinite suspension.

However, Derek Von Wissell – a former finance minister, and current Director of the National Emergency Response Committee on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA) – told IPS that this didn’t present an insurmountable problem.

“The finance minister has the discretionary power to release the first quarter’s funds for any project. That would allow five million rand (709,000 dollars) for the orphans’ school needs,” he said. IPS was unable to get comment from the Finance Ministry on why the minister had not done so.

NERCHA was set up by government to co-ordinate a national response to AIDS in a country where nearly 40 percent of adults have contracted HIV, according to United Nations (UN) and health ministry figures.

Grants from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, as well as government and private sector money, are distributed by NERCHA to national health organisations and community-based initiatives.

Education projects for OVC are aimed at reintroducing AIDS orphans who have dropped out of school to academic work, using a system pioneered by a successful adult literacy programme.

Other non-governmental organisations and child welfare groups emphasise that caring for vulnerable children is a responsibility that should be shared by government, the community – and schools themselves.

When told of the headteachers’ resolution to block the readmission of children who have unpaid school fees, the country representative for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Alan Brody, told IPS, “We have worked with many school head teachers, and some are very aware of the plight of OVC and active in their welfare.”

“We hope head teachers will reconsider, and see the welfare of these children as a shared responsibility. It cannot be business as usual.”

A secondary school headmaster in the central town of Manzini said in an interview that while he sympathises with orphans who have lost their parents to AIDS, under-funded schools are struggling to offer services. Even the collection of fees from children with living parents poses a problem, he added.

Two-thirds of Swazis live below the poverty line, according to the UN Development Programme.

“Also, school was never free in Swaziland. Admission always depended on the payment of fees. Children are forced out of school all the time back because of money matters,” says Doris Ndwandwe, a Manzini primary school teacher.

She told IPS that it is common for children to drop out of school for a year, and then return when their parents have money, or for siblings to rotate their school attendance – with one child going for a year, then sitting out the following year while his or her sibling attends school.

“The answer is we need free universal education in Swaziland,” observes NERCHA Director Von Wissell.

Existing problems with education have deepened with the onset of AIDS. UNICEF estimates that the pandemic will account for 20,000 new orphans annually in this small country during the next few years. By 2010, the AIDS orphan population is projected to reach 120,000, out of a national population of about 900,000.

“If you look at the upward curve of school attendance in primary and secondary institutions since national independence (in 1968), you see a growth in numbers corresponding to a proliferation of schools,” says Von Wissell.

“But then a sharp decline happened in recent years, which has to be attributable to AIDS.”

The NERCHA director also said that 90 percent of children (of school going age) were enrolled in primary school ten years ago.

“Today, the number is down to 70 percent, a big step backward,” he added.

Noted Ndwandwe, “This week’s AIDS orphans school crisis is, I think, a glimpse of things to come. But it’s also a timely wake-up call for the need to find solutions.”