CONFLICTING POLICIES PUSH OVCS OUT OF SYSTEM

MBABANE – Many Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) will be shocked to find that government will not pay for their education and as such they will have to pay their school fees in full.

If not, they will be forced to drop out of school.
Government pays E1 950 for each child under the OVC programme through the Deputy Prime Minister’s (DPM) Office. This is to say if a school charges E7 500 in school fees, the orphaned and vulnerable child will likewise be expected to pay that much if he intends continuing with school.
This, it is said, is a result of a contradiction in government’s education policies.

It has been brought to this publication’s attention that many schools that are yet to submit the list of registered OVCs will discover that some of those on the list no longer qualify to be paid for by government as the DPM’s Office no longer pays for third time repeaters.

However, it is in contradiction to the policy which states that if a child fails a class he gets another chance to repeat that class-fail and repeat. If he fails a second time the policy is that he has to discontinue repeating in that school but move to another one.

The call to discontinue the child at the same school derives from the fact that maybe that child was not doing well because the environment was not a conducive one and should, therefore, find another school where probably he would improve in his grade.

However, the catch is that government would not foot the bill and immediately the child transfers to another school, he would have to pay the full amount in school fees at her new school.

Implementing

“Government is saying she can’t pay for a child three times in the same class. The policy says so and we had no problem with implementing this when a child had completed Form V in another school then come to restart at a new school,” Swaziland Schools Administrators’ (SASA) Chairperson Siphasha Dlamini confirmed.

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