A lasting effect of HIV/Aids is the devastating impact it has on the education of children. Throughout sub–Saharan Africa, orphans — regardless of how they lost their parents — are less likely to be enrolled in school. If they are in school, they lag behind children of the same age.
The negative effect of Aids in the classroom is expected to dampen economic growth as well as the health and well-being of people across the continent. Policy-makers are grappling with the crisis, but disagreement abounds. Some researchers in South Africa argue that it would be unfair to provide special services to orphans. They note that there are many poverty-stricken children whose parents are alive who are equally at risk of poor schooling outcomes.
They ask why, in the context of widespread poverty, children in the care of relatives should require special grants that aren’t available for children living with biological parents.
Our research speaks directly to this question.
We used data from the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies to follow about 90 000 people living in the uMkhanyakude district in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
This database is unique in that it allows us to track children over time and observe what happens when a parent dies. The research shows that regardless of whether they are from poor or relatively well-off homes, orphans are less likely to be enrolled in school.
And even when they are enrolled in school, uniforms, school fees and transport are expensive and it is clear that less is spent on educating orphans in comparison with non-orphans in the same household.
Those orphans who are in school lag behind children of a similar age. How much they lag behind varies, but the average delay is about a third of a year, which is quite detrimental at such a young age.
It is important to note that it is the death of the mother that has the most significant impact on a child’s schooling. The death of a father, on its own, does not cause a child to fall behind. Possible explanations may be that mothers champion their children’s schooling or that other caregivers simply don’t put aside money for schooling.
It may also be that the children are psychologically damaged by the death of a mother and they become less school-ready.
The devastating impact of maternal death isn’t unique to northern KwaZulu-Natal. An analysis of census data from the whole of South Africa yields similar results. The question is what to do next.
Documenting that orphans are vulnerable does not provide sufficient grounds for recommending policies that target them.
Some policymakers argue for free universal education as the fairest way of dealing with the gathering storm. While this is laudable, it is unlikely to become reality any time soon.
Targeted policies also bring with them a host of problems. It is often difficult to find an effective screening device that does not screen out the people that need to be reached.
In South Africa, a foster-care grant is available to help caregivers provide for orphans until they reach the age of 18, but many caregivers in the study area experienced enormous difficulty in accessing the grant.
In uMkhanyakude only 9% of orphans, who lost both their mother and father, receive grants of any kind. Fewer than 2% receive a foster-care grant.
It is thought that bureaucratic barriers, such as the need to provide a death certificate, raise the bar to the point that caregivers don’t apply.
It is not clear whether special grants are the best policy response to the risks orphans face, at least with respect to their schooling. The research findings suggest that cash given to caregivers is unlikely to close the gap in school achievement. There is a risk that any money given to caregivers would be disproportionately channelled to non-orphan children in the same household.
Even orphans living in better-off households, where there is house ownership, a car and a regular salary are also at risk for education deficits if compared with other affluent children who have not lost their mothers.
In-kind educational transfers to orphans — such as subsidies for school fees and uniforms — do merit consideration, but there isn’t a great deal of research into their effectiveness as yet.
In South Africa there is, at least on paper, a fee exemption for poor children. But, these fees are used directly by the schools that collect them, for maintenance, equipment and school supplies, so it is not in their interests to waive fees.
In the area surveyed, only 1% of school-going children aged six to 16 paid no school fees at all. To be effective, in-kind transfers to orphans — such as waiving school fees and subsidising school uniforms — would need to be provided through a central fund that did not deplete local school resources.
Cally Ardington is a statistics lecturer and a research associate at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. Anne Case is professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University in the United States. Both are affiliated to the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies