Education Law Project Applauds KZN 9/6/08

The Education Law Project based at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) at the University of the Witwatersrand applauds the leadership of the KZN DOE in deciding to create more school boarding facilities and prioritise the placement of orphaned children in these facilities. CALS has been advocating for this policy decision at national level and believes it is a formidable multi-pronged solution to several issues facing our orphaned children.

Considering the statistics on child headed households and the rights set out in the South African Constitution it seems that the existing facilities which are provided for the nutrition, shelter and basic health care services for children should be made available to those most in need.

The DOE needs to ensure that boarding facilities be made available to children in child-headed households before those from more affluent communities.

The National DOE should create a list of Automatic exemptions for boarding costs, as has been done for fee exemptions. Children from child headed households must be automatically exempted from boarding costs and have first priority on admission to board facilities.

Due to the migration of caregivers and parents from outlying areas to urban areas and to their workplace during the weekly or seasonal nature of their employment many children are living in child-headed households during the week. These children may have a parent but are responsible for their own food, financial management, and school attendance etc during the week.

Although perhaps not as dire as permanent child headed households this situation does seem to provide an additional motivation for providing automatic exemptions for boarding fees. Children who experience occasional child-headed households should be given automatic exemption for boarding fees and prioritised in admissions.
Further debate and discussion needs to be held with organisations working with vulnerable children to identify other criteria for automatic exemptions from boarding fees.

The ELP motivates that the creation of boarding facilities and the prioritising of children from child-headed households in accessing these facilities assists the South African government in fulfilling their obligations under the constitution to respect both basic human rights requirements and the rights of the child. This simple solution is of the utmost significance in providing orphans with a hopeful future.

CALS also asked the Department of Education to create more clarity around the definition of school fees and to inform educators and parents that boarding school fees were included in the calculations for exemptions. The ELP is during the course of its work witnessing the fact that many parents are being denied the opportunity to apply for fee exemptions for boarding school fees.

The School Governing Bodies and Principal are interpreting the fee exemption policy in such a way that it is not applicable to boarding costs. If exemptions apply to boarding fees the poorest learners will gain access not only to education but to housing and food as well. It is the opinion of Phillipa Tucker that these facilities should be made available to the poorest portion of the population and not the most affluent.

The ELP congratulates the KZN Dept of Education on this move and will continue to advocate for similar decisions from the leadership in the other 8 provinces, and at national level.

For more information contact Phillipa Tucker on (011) 717-8627