Parliamentary visit #1: Committee meeting re: women, children and persons with diabilities.

·      It’s a shame you can’t take photos here-the galleries are amazing; huge sun beam windows tinted orange etc.

·      There are also many museum cases with historic pieces such as wigs, gowns etc.

·      It’s really informal here-one lady asked who we were [she seemed like an usher] and quickly took our attempt to explain we were volunteers.

·      Security is fairly lax-you cannot take photos but you may have a laptop/camera etc.

·      There is a security point at every building entrance-and the grounds themselves resemble somewhat of a University campus.

·      It is open-so anyone can attend

·      They gave us a pass to enter and asked to see our passports before entering.

·      We could choose from a long list of committee meetings that we could attend: housing, banking and commerce, environmental etc.

·      The physical committee room layout is vaguely similar to that of an English court-with a bench at the far side of the room and the rest of the room filled with two tiered horse-shoe shaped benches with both microphone and speaker facilities.

·      The committee members are mainly of either black or coloured [mixed race] ethnicity. As yet, there are no white committee members, only observers.

·      A camera-man has just set up in the corner of the room.

·      The session is due to start at 9:30am.

·      The shutters come down automatically over the windows, as a projector screen is also set up.

·      The meeting begins. A man is called to take over from the opening speaker-he is blind and is led by the lady to his right at the far end of the room.

·      He begins to talk about the subject ‘access to education and support for learners with special education needs’.

·      The directorate of special education is present and briefly discusses the agenda for today.

·      Each member is told that they can make a presentation.

·      Teenage pregnancy is said to be on the agenda as well as the declining population of students.

·      The man sat at the centre of the bench-an ‘honourable chair person’-begins the meeting with a statement that there are foreign students in the room and asks whether we would like to introduce themselves (one person speaking on our behalf) to say where we are from and what we hope to gain from observing today.

·      Our speaker begins with ‘thank you honourable chair person…’ and goes on t talk about PAHRO.

·      There is an opening speech about the main outline of today and the context in which the committee is discussing these issues.

·      The content of today’s meeting targets access to education and early child development by proposing regular assessment of the system to monitor progress.

·      Action plan designed until 2014.

·      So each presentation by the chair member will cover a particular aspect of this plan and so will cover their entire action plan.

·      Their visions seem very broad and difficult to obtain: an inclusive school system and leading towards an inclusive society.

·      Inclusivity seems to be the focal point during this first presentation.

·      Talks about the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and what they can do to comply better with this [article 24 ‘speaks to the realities on the ground’].

·      Dignity and the respect thereof is very often talked about.

·      There are two types of schools: mainstream/ordinary schools and special schools [learners with disabilities] so these are the two diff types of schools.

·      What they want to do is make special schools for those with severe and intense disabilities.

·      They want to make the ordinary schools better at catering for those who have smaller disabilities-requiring lower levels of support.

·      They count attention deficit disorder as a recognised disability as well as cerebral palsied.

·      The statistics cover all provinces and not a specific one.

·      Provinces are all acronymic: ec, fs, gt, kz, lp etc.

·      There has been 3 billion rand dedicated to special schools in 2010/2011.

·      Curriculum diversity should be improved so as it is representative of the population of schools and how diverse disability can be.

·      The presentation is, once again, interrupted because one woman believes this is too much and that it will make things difficult.

·      5 minutes is spent discussing whether they can compromise for now since ‘the whole world appears to be watching the committee meeting’!

·      The second presentation regards teenage pregnancy, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and violence in public schools.

·      Talks about the training of teachers to be able to recognise and deal with those children who show signs of abuse.

·      They have conducted their studies based on fertility [births of babies] because, as they so rightly point out, many do not register their pregnancy.

·      They have noted that it is not so much that they fall pregnant and then leave, but that they leave/drop-out and then fall pregnant. So what needs to be concentrated upon is keeping young girls in school.

·      Poor neighbourhoods and schools with age-mixing are worst affected and increase risks.

·      Many young girls get into relationships with older men in return for material goods.

·      Sexuality is not talked about in schools and this is the problem because it is difficult to talk about.

·      The woman that is conducting this presentation is the youngest in the room-I would say no older than early 30’s.

·      Making contraceptives readily available is one of the suggested actions, as well as increasing non-fee schools, access to health care social grants, school safety etc.

·      According to data, young girls do not fall pregnant in order to get these social grants [when births are looked at in relation to the up taking of grants].

·      The eastern cape is the greatest affected area in relation to teenage pregnancy.

·      They want to develop an early warning system; when risk is detected, they would get in touch with support that can help them.

·      Because young women have been known to hide their pregnancy up until the actual birth, it is proposed that a clinic nurse should visit the school on a regular basis in order to ascertain the status and health of young school girls.

·      There are concerns that teachers are having sexual relations with students-and so teachers must be educated themselves on what is legal and what is not tolerated. Schools should also be swift in dealing with such teachers.

·      ‘cool time’ is what students are given after their learning time at school-so it is like play time. The children themselves have actually commented that this is when dangerous things are engaged in and so it is proposed that ‘cool time’ is incorporated into education time so that they are kept safe but get to enjoy themselves through e.g. school clubs, sports and activities.

·      They also want to ensure that girls who leave to give birth are brought back into schools as soon as possible and that they are given a second chance-with some sort of ‘catch-up’ program given to them.

·      One mentality of the past has been to force the mother to stay with the child as a means of punishment for becoming pregnant whilst at a school age. They wish to change this mentality.

·      Increasing uniformity is important when dealing with teenage pregnancies.

·      There has not, as of yet, been any interruptions in this presentation.

·      The presentation comes to an end.

·      Between presentations, there is a joke between the blind man at the head of the bench and one of the other committee members. Her name is clearly difficult to pronounce [representative of the different nationality influences in SA] and, after the 4^th time she pronounces it, he repeats back different phonetics and the room laughs. There is clearly a good feeling amongst the members-and they are happy to joke with one another.

·      The third and final presentation discusses children and crime and violence in schools.

·      UNICEF conducted an audit of 585 schools to look at violence, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and gangsterism.

·      Corporal punishment has been, in more recent years, reported as not being used as often (recorded in 2006-when the program started).

·      It is discussed that security and metal detectors should be introduced so that those who are coming to the schools are only those who have business with those schools and that students cannot bring weapons.

·      A chair person speaks in conclusion-that disease and poverty are great hindrances to these proposals and that, in order to succeed, children need to realise their rights.

·      This is a very inspirational speech considering the work we are currently doing for children through PAHRO.

·      Questions are taken five at a time.

·      One lady, representative of the department of education, says that, in conclusion, she hopes that the educational department are not the only ones blamed for all these ills and agrees that all departments must work together to achieve this.

·      During the questions, the blind man at the head of the bench hears another committee member speak of ‘autism’ and asks what this means. The committee member replies with a vague description of a person who, if the room was set in a particular way, would expect that room to be so each and every time-and if it was not, then they would be very easily irritable.

·      One of the questions catches my attention: a chair women asks whether it is true that teachers have been found to have engaged in sexual relations with students and goes on to ask how many have been found guilty?