The target set three years ago to extend the child-support grants to 3,2-million children by March this year has already been exceeded by 300 000, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) reports on its website.
A report on the state of social grants appears under the president’s regular column and notes that by June this year over 3,5-million children were registered as beneficiaries of the child-support grant.
The total number of people receiving social grants was 7,4-million, noted the report.
It stated that a detailed study that profiled all child beneficiaries and their access to various forms of government services had been completed. The report would be presented to Cabinet during October.
The report noted that “more than 7 000 schools” had implemented a voluntary no fee policy.
“This means that 2,6-million learners need not pay school fees, thus increasing access to education. Policies will be in place at the beginning of the 2007 school year to ensure that fees for the poorest primary schools are eliminated.”
As part of work to provide good quality classrooms for learners, the Department of Education had been conducting an audit of all schools. As of August 2006, 63% of the 30 000 institutions had been audited and an interim report on the first 15 000 institutions had been prepared.
“Proper classrooms were made available to those learners who were found to be learning under trees in 2004. However, recent storms have resulted in damage to some schools. While the damage is being repaired, some learners are forced to learn under unfavourable conditions.”
Plans were also being finalised to increase the numbers of community caregivers from 11 182 community caregivers at the beginning of this financial year to 25 000 by the end of this financial year. A key challenge was government’s capacity to adequately train the new recruits into this programme, the report noted. — I-Net Bridge