HEARD News

A snapshot of education in Swaziland

Swaziland has the world's highest HIV infection rate. AIDS-related mortality has already begun to thin the working-age population and reduce fertility. Owning to these alarming trends, the importance of building the capacity of the education sector to educate and skill the next generation cannot be underestimated. And so, HEARD's 'Rebuilding Human Capital in Swaziland' study carried out a survey in March 2009 with primary and secondary school children in Swaziland.

This joint research study between HEARD and UNICEF Swaziland and the National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS in Swaziland aimed to explore the prevalence of, and reasons behind, absenteeism, grade repetition and drop-out among school children. The results and recommendations will be presented to members of parliament in Swaziland at the end of this year.

Conditional cash grants to all children enrolled in school in Swaziland will be a key long-term strategy to reinvigorate Swaziland's human capital base. Addressing sexual and reproductive health in schools across Swaziland and the high costs of schooling have been identified as other key concerns that need to be tackled.

A total of 1,034 students were surveyed and the key findings of the survey are:

A quarter of primary school children said they had been absent from school for 1-3 days in the past month and over a quarter of secondary school students said that they had missed a month or more of schooling in the last year. The most common reason given for absenteeism was ill health.
Grade repetition is a very common phenomenon in Swaziland. The vast majority of those surveyed were above the age of the grade they were currently enrolled on. Illness and a lack of money for school fees and schooling related costs were the two main reasons for students' repeating grades.
Over a third of respondents had a friend or a family member who had dropped out of school. The inability to find the necessary income to pay for school fees and associated costs contributed to around a half of drop-out rates. It was discovered that teenage pregnancy is a big problem in Swaziland. It accounted for a quarter of drop-outs in primary schools and close to a third in secondary schools.
Attitudes to school were found to be generally positive with the majority reporting school to be exciting and enjoyable. Surprisingly, the presence of older aged students did not make it difficult to concentrate in class. The size of classrooms, often 40 plus, did however create difficulties with some students. Roughly half of all students reported that they had some fear about school, with corporal punishment being a frequently reported fear.