Government-funded programmes and services for vulnerable - Unicef

Government-funded programmes and services for vulnerable children in SA
School enrolment, attendance and documentation
The imposition of school enrolment, attendance and documentation requirements for CSG
beneficiaries may hinder easy access to the CSG by vulnerable children.
As described in some detail in Table 3.1, the new Regulations to the Social Assistance Act
require the caregivers of all children between the ages of 7 and 18 who apply for or receive
the CSG to provide proof of the child’s enrolment and attendance at school. Furthermore,
the Regulations require the Department of Education (DoE) to monitor the attendance of
CSG recipients and advise the DoSD if such recipients are not attending school.
There are three potential problems inherent in these requirements. First, even though the
Regulations very clearly do not make school enrolment or attendance a qualifying condition
for receipt of the CSG, there is a risk that the SASSA officials may read the imposition of this
condition as a qualifying criterion. If this happens, we will see, as has happened in relation to
misinterpretations of other documentation requirements by SASSA officials, that children are
barred from accessing the CSG because they cannot obtain the necessary school documents
or cannot enrol at or attend school. This is particularly problematic in the context of children
made more vulnerable by HIV/AIDS as they are particularly at risk of not enrolling or
attending school, for the many reasons spelt out in more detail in Chapter 5. The introduction
of this new requirement linked to the CSG may aggravate the exclusion of vulnerable children
from school rather than serve to improve their rate of enrolment and attendance.
A further problem that may arise in relation to these new requirements is the lack of
proper attendance record keeping and information management at schools, especially
the more vulnerable schools which register higher volumes of vulnerable children. The
systems as they are currently implemented and managed at school level will make it
difficult for all schools to be able to record attendance and produce reports to the DoSD
regarding attendance or lack thereof by CSG recipients. 37
The third problem that will inhibit the implementation of the new Regulations is the
severe shortage of social workers in South Africa, which already inhibits the proper
implementation of child protection services in the country. The new Regulations require
a social worker investigation whenever a report of non-enrolment or non-attendance by
a CSG recipient is made to the DoSD. As discussed in some detail later, South Africa is
experiencing a severe shortage of social workers, which will make it impossible to meet
the investigative obligations required by the Regulations.
Oversubscription of the FCG
The FCG has become a primary source of financial support for family members caring
for orphaned or abandoned children (Meintjies et al. 2003). This saw the number of FCG
beneficiaries increasing tenfold between 2000 and 2008 from 49 843 in 2000 to 445 282 in
2008. 38 The underlying problem, from a service delivery point of view, is that access to the
FCG must be preceded by a full and formal foster care investigation by a social worker and
hearing by a children’s court. This has resulted in the caseload of social workers becoming
completely unmanageable and their role has turned into a largely administrative one of
rubber-stamping foster care investigations so as to expedite the foster parent’s access to the
FCG. Likewise, it has caused bottlenecks in the courts, which results in keeping children
37 Private correspondence with Kevin Roussel, director of ACESS
38 Statistics from the DoSD Annual Report, 2000/01, and SASSA Social Security Statistical Report, 29 February 2008,
quoted in National Welfare, Social Service and Development Forum, 2008
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