Failing handicapped children is to fail as a caring society

10 February 2014 - 02:00 By The Times Editorial
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It has often been said that the true measure of a society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.

It is a noble sentiment and one that is at the heart of the ANC's vision for a democratic country in which all will enjoy equal rights and equal opportunities. It is, in fact, the pay-off line in the party's new election manifesto: "A vote for the ANC is a vote for a better life for all."

Sad, then, that the Gauteng education department has seen fit to tell various special-needs schools that there are to be drastic cuts in staff funding.

One school in particular, which caters for 400 kids with cerebral palsy, will lose all its house mothers and all its assistants. With no one to administer medication and take care of its disabled children, the school will have to close its residence, forcing 29 severely disabled kids out into the cold. What will happen to them? Does anyone care?

By all accounts, no.

Every year, the department says it will deal with staffing issues and every year it fails to do so. The problem, it transpires, is that it has not drafted a schedule of norms and standards for special-needs staffing. Every year the department says it will compile the schedule and, guess what, every year it doesn't.

In the meantime, the going policy seems to be that staff labelled surplus to requirements are "not lost to the system" but are reallocated to schools that need them. How they could be needed more elsewhere, and at which schools, is difficult to fathom.

We do know that there is a very visible tragedy unfolding in our country. It is evident everywhere in the daily service delivery protests.

But let us not forget about the people who inhabit the unseen fringes of our society, and who are also in dire need.

What unites both tragedies is another tragedy. And it is not that the government doesn't care about society's most vulnerable. It is the tragedy that it has always put off until tomorrow what it should have done yesterday.

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