School a blur for many kids

A third of Grade1 pupils have eye, hearing or speech problems, according to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi.

He was speaking at a conference of the Hospital Association of SA in Sandton, Johannesburg, yesterday.

Motsoaledi said school health teams had screened 289000 Grade1 children in the past 18 months and had found that 89000 had "serious" speech, hearing or visual impairment.

He said that if this sample were nationally representative, a third of the 12million schoolchildren had health problems.

Motsoaledi said that the speech therapists and occupational therapists needed to help such children were all working in private-sector healthcare.

"The people who must deal with this are out of reach. They are in a different health system."

University of Pretoria educational psychologist Kobus Maree said he was not surprised by the minister's statement.

"I do a lot of work in areas [in which children have] major disadvantages. This is a typical pattern. Students from disadvantaged areas who come to our university often need glasses.

"The ramifications of sight and hearing problems are major."

He said noise in townships caused hearing problems and smoke from open fires in informal settlements could damage eyesight.

Professor Kovin Naidoo, of the Brien Holden Vision Institute, KwaZulu-Natal, said many optometrists were looking for work in the public sector but posts were not available.

Naidoo said that in KwaZulu-Natal there were optometrists in every district but in many provinces they were not employed despite their willingness to work for the state.

About 5% to 7% of all South African children need glasses, according to the institute.

Naidoo said that University of KwaZulu-Natal research had repeatedly shown that only 20% of local children and adults who needed glasses acquired them because of their prohibitive cost.

He said spectacles were not free in the state sector.

Patrick Mawila , deputy director of the SA Optometry Association, said: "Generally, teachers associate a poorly performing kid with a low IQ. My view is that vision difficulties play much more of a role."