Project aims to identify vulnerable children

Swazi children will provide a key data-collection resource to determine exactly how many orphaned, impoverished or otherwise vulnerable children (OVC) are not in school. The database will allow government and child welfare organisations to strategise bursary programmes to achieve universal enrolment of OVC. "We are dedicated to keeping orphans and vulnerable children in school. If they have dropped out for financial or other reasons, we need to get them back," Minister of Education Constance Simelane told IRIN. The first step in the new initiative is identifying the children, Simelane added. The Swaziland office of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is assisting the education ministry in a pilot programme that began this week at 16 schools. UNICEF has estimated that AIDS deaths will leave 20,000 Swazi children each year without parents, resulting in an orphan population of 120,000 by 2010 - a significant proportion in a total population of 950,000. Swaziland has 543 primary and 185 secondary schools. Education is not free or universal - school fees must be paid, and these can be three times higher in urban areas. Even before AIDS began decimating family breadwinners, paying school fees was a struggle in a country where two-thirds of the people live in chronic poverty, according to the United Nations Development Programme's most recent country survey. "Two years ago we did a baseline survey around 16 schools. It wasn't a strategic census but a rough number. What we're doing now is not only thorough, but exploits an untapped resource: children. This will be a child-to-child survey," explained Tizzie Maphalala, education officer for UNICEF Swaziland. Children will be asked by their teachers if they know of any friends who are not in school. "The child can report, 'Oh, Musa, he is six. He isn't in school because they don't have money. He was last in school in term one'. Children play, they interact with their friends and neighbours, and they know all about them. If they report to their teacher about someone who should be at school but is not, the teacher can follow up to get further information," said Maphalala. Sibusiso Mngadi, information officer for UNICEF Swaziland, said: "So many children are out of school. This data will help government to design programmes. Government has already contributed this year when the king released Lilangeni 24.1 million [about US $3.7 million] for the education needs of OVC. The pilot programme will go nationwide to secure additional funding." The data collected during the pilot programme will be released during next month's Day of the African Child celebrations. The child-to-child census is also part of the national implementation of the African Girls Education Initiative (AGEI), supported by the government of Norway. AGEI fosters collaboration among parents, teachers and pupils to respond to the gender imbalances in schools and communities. The number of boys and girls in the lowest level of Swaziland's secondary schools, Form One, is roughly the same, but at the top level in Form Five, male students outnumber female students by about 25 percent. Pregnancy is one factor. Female students who fall pregnant are automatically expelled from schools, unlike their male age-mates who may have impregnated them. Special classes linked to a national adult literacy programme are being set up for out-of-school teenage mothers by the National Emergency Response Committee on HIV and AIDS (NERCHA). The child-to-child census will provide more exact numbers of teenage mothers who have dropped out of school. AIDS has also contributed to the dropout rate, particularly among girls. "Women are seen as the caregivers in Swazi society, when a family member falls ill. When the father, the breadwinner, gets sick from AIDS, the wife and mother must often go out and find work. The daughter then takes the mother's place, to attend the ailing father. Once she drops out of school, it is difficult for her to ever come back to the conventional classroom. That is why special programmes are needed," Dr. Derek Von Wissell, director of NERCHA, told IRIN. "In many communities progress towards the objectives set forth in the African Girls Education Initiative have actually been reversed, because families are continuously stressed by HIV/AIDS, poverty and drought. These factors have resulted in a rapid increase in the numbers of child-headed households, thereby exacerbating problems of school dropout. The situation of children [in terms of] dropout and hunger is particularly poignant in the (eastern) Lubombo and (southern) Shiselweni regions, hence part of the AGEI funds are being applied to ... paying the fees of dropouts at 44 schools in those two regions," said Maphalala. A nationwide child-to-child survey is likely to commence later in the year.