Angela Mashigo reading a paper written in Braille. Picture: Alaister Russell/SAAJP
Many children with disabilities in South Africa pay to access education using their care dependency and disability grants, while their able-bodied peers in ordinary public schools are guaranteed free education.
Families of children who are blind, Deaf, or have other disabilities are often forced to spend money on transport, boarding, and sometimes school fees just to secure a place in a school that can accommodate them. They pay a price that their able-bodied peers in poor communities (quintile 1 to 3) do not have to bear.
Special needs schools are scarce; therefore, many children have to travel long distances or live in hostels far from home to attend school, capable of meeting their needs. In some cases analysed for this story, it showed that children travel more than 400km to access a suitable school. Even within provinces, journeys can exceed 100km, making daily commuting impossible and reinforcing reliance on boarding facilities.
The government subsidy is insufficient to cover boarding and transport fees, leading parents to supplement it with their children’s grants.
As a result, some of the poorest families in the country who have the additional burden of caring for children with disabilities, end up paying for access to education that should, in principle, be free and guaranteed.
For Sarah Masuku, from Kwaggafontein, Mpumalanga, the cost of schooling falls on the disability grants of her two children with disabilities, meaning there is less money available for the household to sustain itself.
“My husband and I are unemployed,” she said, during an interview with Diary Series of Deaf People.
Masuku said:
Masuku stated that covering school costs for her children has been a burden.
“With the one who just completed matric, we were paying R4 000 per year, or R1 000 per term. The one at Silindokuhle (Special School costs) R2 800 per year, and we have to buy 30 rolls of toilet paper, 10 tubes of toothpaste, snacks, 3kg washing powder, and provisions. I struggled to pay the R2 800 and left it halfway.”
For families living on disability grants, even relatively small fees can become unaffordable. At the time of the investigation, disability and care dependency grants were R2,315 per month per individual, and from 1 April it rose to R2,400. It is intended to help families meet the additional costs of caring for these children — not to pay for access to schooling.
Yet in many cases the grant becomes the only way families can cover the costs of boarding, transport or school fees.
Data collected directly from schools during the course of reporting showed that boarding fees for special schools range from about R2,500 to as much as R38,000 per year, depending on the province. Day schooling is sometimes free, but at least one special school surveyed charged day school fees of up to R17,000 annually.
The experience of learners with disabilities stands in contrast to that of able-bodied children in the same communities. Children attending ordinary public schools in poor communities, Quintile 1 to 3, are typically guaranteed access to nearby no-fee schools.
A provincial breakdown
According to the South African National Association for Special Education (SANASE), several provinces - often the poorest and most rural - have a high number of special schools with boarding facilities.
In provinces such as Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and the Eastern Cape, there are large numbers of special schools with hostels, meaning many pupils have to live far away from their families during the school term.
SANASE figures show that Limpopo has 35 special schools, 23 of which have hostels. KwaZulu-Natal has 76 special schools, with 43 hostels. The Free State has 24 special schools, 16 of which have hostels, while the Eastern Cape has 46 special schools, with 22 providing hostel accommodation.
Gauteng has 131 special schools but only 32 provide hostel accommodation. The Western Cape has 75 special schools, of which 18 offer boarding. North West has 32 special schools with 15 hostels, while Mpumalanga has 19 special schools, only four of which offer boarding and most end at primary school level.
Sometimes, pupils with disabilities have to attend school outside their provinces. This places additional financial pressure on families who have to cover travel costs, in addition to boarding fees and other expenses associated with schooling far from home.
Parents and advocacy groups said that disability grants are used to cover boarding costs because families sometimes have no other sources of income.
Florance Mdluli, who is partially blind, shows the structure she used to live in before the wall collapsed, at their home in Belkop Farm, near Mashishing, formerly known as Lydenburg, Mpumalanga. Mdluli’s two daughters, Princess and Angel Mashego attend school at the Bosele School for the Blind and Deaf, in Monsterlus, Limpopo. Picture: Alaister Russell/SAAJP
The plight of two sisters
Angel Mashego (16) and her younger sister, Princess (15), are pupils at Bosele School for the Blind and Deaf in Limpopo and this is due to a shortage of special schools in their province. They travel every term from their home in Belkop, near Lydenburg in Mpumalanga. Bosele is a two-hour drive from the girls’ home. It caters for blind, partially sighted, deaf, and hard-of-hearing pupils. It charges R2 500 per pupil per year.
When returning home for the holidays, the sisters live in a mud house with their mother, Florance Mdluli, who is partially blind, and their grandmother, Martha Mvuleni, who is totally blind.
Angel said:
Both sisters said they often lack basic necessities.
“We don’t have proper clothes. We wear old clothes given by our aunt. Our uniform is not in good condition. Our grandmother and mother are not working.”
Angel said:
The effects of poverty are apparent even in the family’s daily needs for proper food and shelter.
Mdluli said:
Martha Mvuleni who is completely blind poses for a portrait in her room, at her home in Belkop Farm, near Mashishing, formerly known as Lydenburg, Mpumalanga. Mvuleni’s two granddaughters, Princess and Angel Mashego are attending school at the Bosele School for the Blind and Deaf, in Monsterlus, Limpopo. Picture: Alaister Russell/SAAJP
For many families, the cost of education competes directly with basic survival. Despite government commitments to inclusive education, access to schooling for children with disabilities remains uneven. The Social Assistance Act 13 of 2004 states that children receiving care dependency grants should not be cared for on a 24-hour basis in state-funded institutions for periods exceeding six months.
Yet many learners with disabilities remain in boarding for extended periods because there are no schools closer to their homes.
Comments from civil society
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has stated that education should be physically accessible at a reasonably convenient location, such as a neighbourhood school – a standard that is often not met for children with disabilities in South Africa.
Civil society organisations that advocate for poor children’s rights to free and quality education were unanimous in raising a red flag over the expenses that poor children with disabilities are forced to incur to have access to education.
“We are worried that children with disabilities have to live in school hostels, away from their families and communities, in order to access education,” said Anjuli Maistry of the Equal Education Law Centre
Maistry said:
Jabulane Blose, the CEO of South African National Deaf Association, said that charging children with disabilities puts them at a “structural disadvantage from the outset” and “entrenches inequality in access to basic education”.
“Many families of children with disabilities already face significantly higher costs related to disability-specific needs, including transport, assistive technologies, therapy, and communication support,” he said
Blose said:
Nomahlubi Khwinana, Commissioner for the South African Human Rights Commission, said that a scenario where families are forced to commit disability grants to covering costs to secure access to basic education “may raise important constitutional concerns relating to equality, dignity, and access to basic education.”
“Social grants are generally intended as social assistance measures to support the care, welfare, and basic needs of the beneficiary. They are not ordinarily intended to replace the State’s obligations in relation to the provision of basic education,” he said.
“Should a formal complaint or further information be submitted, the Commission would be in a better position to assess whether the practice has the effect of unfairly burdening learners with disabilities and their families.”
Martha Mvuleni who is completely blind is photographed through a broken wall, Belkop Farm, near Mashishing, formerly known as Lydenburg, Mpumalanga. Mvuleni’s two granddaughters, Princess and Angel Mashego are attending school at the Bosele School for the Blind and Deaf, in Monsterlus, Limpopo. Picture: Alaister Russell/SAAJ
SANASE’s president Fannie Mashapu said that the parents of children with disabilities do not send their children to boarding schools by choice.
“We therefore believe the hostel costs must be borne by government,” he said.
Mashapu said:
DBE right of reply
DBE stated that in some provinces, the government does cover or subsidise transport or boarding costs for learners, particularly those who live far from schools or face financial challenges. However, DBE said support is not consistent across all provinces.
“In other areas, it may be limited or not available at all, due to differences in funding, policies, and implementation. As a result, while such assistance does exist, it is not universally provided and can be relatively rare in certain regions.”
Asked whether it is appropriate for children to stay in boarding schools far from home for months, the DBE’s spokesman Lukhanyo Vanqa said, “It is not appropriate; that is why the Directorate: Inclusive Education has started work towards this direction. However, there are issues, especially systemic, that require attention for this to happen. These are issues that are currently being worked on.”
He did not specify what those issues are.
Vanqa said, “The directorates do not administer the declaration of no-fee and fee statuses to special schools. Section 35(1) of the SASA requires the Minister to determine national quintiles for public schools and national norms and standards for school funding after consultation with the Council of Education Ministers and the Minister of Finance. The Directorate Financial Planning and Budget Support administers this section in relation to public ordinary schools only. It must be indicated that the declaration of special schools into quintiles would not work, as the disability of the learners and the associated weighting takes precedence. It must be noted that the placing of schools into quintiles takes into account the schools’ poverty scores, which in turn depend on the socio-economic status of the schools’ catchment area.
“The declaration of special schools depends heavily on a funding policy that will apply uniformly in the country. If a school is provided with all the resources in the policy, then such a school can be declared no-fee.”
Vanqa said:
But Vanqa did not respond to whether the decision for special schools to charge fees was determined by parents. Additionally, he did not respond to whether parents of children without disabilities made the decision for their children to obtain free education at ordinary public schools.
✼ Vicky Abraham is an investigative journalist for Diary Series of Deaf People (www.thedeafdiary.com).This report has been produced by the Southern Africa Accountability Journalism Project (SA | AJP), an initiative of the Henry Nxumalo Foundation with the financial assistance of the European Union. It can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.
