The Department of Education is not responding to children orphaned by HIV/Aids as well as it could, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
”My own anecdotal evidence is that we are not responding to orphans as well as we could,” she said.
She was speaking at the launch of the Education Sector Global HIV and Aids Readiness Survey, conducted by the UNAids Interagency Task Team on education, held at the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
The survey showed that only 30% of the 71 ministries of education surveyed worldwide had programmes to address the needs of orphans and vulnerable children.
Pandor said these children should be getting access to feeding schemes.
”They should be getting some access to nutrition.”
Graca Machel, a trustee of the foundation and the former education minister in Mozambique, warned of the effect the disease was having on the children who had lost their parents to the virus.
She said orphans being cared for by their grandparents were being given food and shelter, but lost life skills that only their young parents could have given them.
This left education departments with the problem of managing and mitigating the disease and anticipating problems. — Sapa