Christina Scott
CAPE TOWN, Nov 21 2005 (IPS) – Ndiphiwe Nyathi s* mother died while her daughter was at school; now the teenage girl is missing classes to nurse her ailing father. When she does attend lessons, she seems angry, says Valencia Gqaleni, one of her teachers at Manyano High School. She fought with the other learners one day.
Ndiphiwe lives in Khayelitsha, an expanse of cheap concrete block homes and corrugated tin shacks, sandy footpaths and the occasional, stubborn tree. This predominantly black area was established in Cape Town, South Africa, during apartheid and still bears the imprint of racial segregation in its poor living conditions and massive unemployment.
For those in Khayelitsha who want to improve or escape their circumstances, education is key. All too often, however, the schooling received by children in this and other poverty-stricken areas in South Africa is being compromised by the loss of parents many of whom are succumbing to AIDS.
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) puts HIV prevalence in the country at 21.5 percent. There are presently about a million orphans in South Africa.
Nomntu Mashoba, a teacher at Nolungile, a primary school wedged next to a busy railway station in Khayelitsha, has a seven-year-old in her class who spends much of the time day dreaming. Even after the school year was well underway in 2005, Nozipho Butshingi still didn t have a uniform, crayons or files. Mashoba found out why on Mother s Day, when she asked pupils to write letters to their mothers and Nozipho broke down. She no longer has a mother.
Still, she is in class unlike Unathi Gondwe, a high school pupil whose mother died recently from an unspecified illness, and whose father is in jail for murder. Before, he was a good boy, says teacher Mavis Baartman of Unathi, who is absent for the day.
But, Lately he s cheeky. He doesn t want to play with other boys, he wants to beat them.
A study published earlier this year by the Centre for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town (UCT) found that orphans were less likely than their counterparts to be enrolled in school, irrespective of whether they came from poor homes, or those with more resources.
The deaths of parents mothers in particular have a marked negative effect on their children s schooling regardless of the cause of death, says Cally Ardington, a statistics lecturer at UCT who conducted the study along with Anne Case: an economics professor from Princeton University in the United States.
These findings were based on information gathered about 90,000 people who were tracked for several years by the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies, a research institute based in the south-eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.
Case and Ardington discovered that the average orphan fell behind by a third of a year almost immediately after the death of his or her mother. In households containing both orphaned and non-orphaned children, less money was spent on education for the orphans.
Nkosazana Mbele, also an orphan, is in the same class as Ndiphiwe. She stays with a family but clearly receives less care than the family s own children. Nkosazana s not wearing a uniform, says Gqaleni. She s dirty.
Where the poor conditions of orphans were related to poverty rather than favouritism, government policies aimed at addressing this lack of funding did not necessarily help.
The research indicated that fewer than two percent of orphans received the foster care grants for which they qualified. This may be because certain procedures that caregivers must go through to obtain these grants, such as getting death certificates for orphans parents, are seen as too arduous.
However, Ardington is also concerned that even when orphans do get grants, at least some of the money ends up being used by the host family to deal with other needs. Attempts to single out orphans for assistance can also cause resentment among poor families where the parents are still alive, and who feel that they are also entitled to help in caring for their dependents.
While there is a compelling argument for keeping as many HIV-positive parents as possible alive by giving them anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), the free provision of this treatment in South Africa has proceeded slowly in many instances.
The AIDS Epidemic Update 2005 , the annual report of UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation, launched Monday, noted that more than 80 percent of those in need of ARVs in South Africa were still failing to receive them by the middle of this year.
Free schooling also holds out the promise of improving matters, but South Africa appears too cash-strapped to introduce this in the near future. The law already states that schools are not meant to turn away children who are unable to pay fees. However, this puts principals who depend on this money to keep their institutions operating in a terrible quandary.
In a bid to reduce the embarrassment felt by orphans who do not have school uniforms, a number of AIDS activists and even a national coalition of retailers (which will lose money if their proposals are accepted) are calling for a change in policy on uniforms.
Instead of the colourful and varied uniforms historically worn to differentiate rival schools, they have suggested a limited, inexpensive range of black, grey, navy and white clothing. The South African government is also considering dropping the requirement that primary school children must wear shoes.
As policy makers struggle to find the best way of ensuring that orphans remain in school and of making life bearable for them once there teachers cope with the present, unsatisfactory situation as best they can.
Frequently, they find out about a student s orphan status by mistake, and never know whether making enquiries about food parcels and foster care grants is going to help or hinder.
Others dread having to confront pupils about their parents directly.
What are you going to do after you ask the question? observes a teacher.
* The names of children have been changed to protect their privacy.
