Education: Free basic support for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) (three indicators)
Export Indicator
To assess progress in providing support to orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) through school-based programmes delivered or facilitated by schools.
These indicators aim to monitor the proportion of OVC who attend school and receive free basic support, including school fee exemption, through school-based networks. These indicators will provide information for the education sector to monitor the role that schools play to support OVC who are currently enrolled. Under ‘Education for All’ (EFA), every effort should be made to ensure that every child attends school. This is linked to all six of the EFA goals, and most particularly to goal 1: Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children. Often incentives offered by schools encourage marginalized children to attend school and remain in school. The indicator aims to gauge what additional assistance is being facilitated by the school in providing support to orphans and other vulnerable children.
Schools, in countries with a generalized epidemic, are becoming important partners in supporting OVC and are often used by CBOs, NGOs or faith-based organizations (FBOs) as the points to access and provide support to orphans. Schools are considered to be critical in providing support to OVC and research is also showing that it is important to ensure that OVC have access to and remain in school. This indicator will track the support that schools are facilitating or providing. It is therefore considered important to report on OVC who receive free basic support through schools.
The age range (5-17 years) captures only OVC in schools. It is understood that some school systems may enroll children at a younger age, while others only enrol learners at the age of 6 or 7 years, or older.
For this indicator the OVC must be enrolled at the school and attend regularly and support must be facilitated through the school but can draw on external partners or community members. If the OVC were not attending school, they would not necessarily have access to the support being offered.
Definition of OVC (UNICEF):
An orphan is defined as a child below the age of 18 years who has lost one (either mother or father) or both parents. So single- and double parent orphans are considered. A child made vulnerable by HIV is below the age of 18 and:
■ Has lost one or both parents; or
■ Has a chronically ill parent (regardless of whether the parent lives in the same household as the child); or
■ Lives in a household where, in the last 12 months, at least one adult died and was sick for three to four months before he or she died; or
■ Lives in a household where at least one adult was seriously ill for at least three of the past 12 months.
Three support services provided or facilitated by the school to orphaned and vulnerable children were identified, each corresponding to one of the three indicators:
1. For Indicator 1: Bursary support, including school fee exemption: Percentage of OVC able to participate in education free of fees or charges (enabled through bursary support, school fee waiver or other mechanisms).
2. For Indicator 2: Emotional/psychological support: through professional counselling from a trained counsellor (including teachers with that specialization) at school or through referral, by the school, of OVC to social services or other counselling providers.
3. For Indicator 3: Social support, excluding bursary support/fee exemption:
a) Material support for education (e.g. uniforms, school books, etc.);
b) Food assistance (e.g. school feeding or take home rations);
c) Other forms of economic support.
After all orphaned and vulnerable children aged 5-17 in school have been identified, the school head (or head teacher) is asked the following three questions about the types of support offered to these children through the school:
1. For Indicator 1: In the previous academic year, has your school provided or enabled the provision to orphaned and vulnerable children of bursaries, including school fee exemption (fee waiver or other financial mechanisms)?
2. For Indicator 2: In the previous academic year, has your school provided or enabled the provision to orphaned and vulnerable children of emotional and/or psychological support, through professional counselling from a trained counsellor (including teachers with that specialization) at school or through referral, by the school, of orphaned and vulnerable children to social services or other counselling providers?
3. For Indicator 3: In the previous academic year, has your school provided or enabled the provision to orphaned and vulnerable children of social support (excluding bursary support/fee exemption) in the form of:
a) Material support for education (e.g. uniforms, school books, etc.);
b) Food assistance (e.g. school feeding or take home rations);
c) Other forms of economic support?
Support provided is defined as free help coming from a source other than friends, family or neighbours, unless they are working for a community-based group or organization. All support received must be facilitated by the school or through school partnerships. The school does not need to commit financial resources to provide the support – they are merely playing a facilitative role. The period of reference is the previous academic year as the focus of the indicator is on the support delivered through schools.
OVC must be enrolled and attending school in order to be counted and considered. It is suggested that the period/time that a child has been orphaned is also recorded, perhaps in two-year groups. The disaggregation of orphanhood data by age and duration of orphaning is important, as both play a key role in determining the type of support needed.
Calculated as a percentage:
Numerator(s)
■ For Indicator 1: Number of orphaned and vulnerable children (aged 5-17) identified by the school, who attended school and who received bursary support, including fee exemption, through the school in the previous academic year.
■ For Indicator 2: Number of orphaned and vulnerable children (aged 5-17) identified by the school, who attended school and who received emotional/psychological support through professional counselling from a trained counsellor (including teachers with that specialization) at school or through referral, by the school, of OVC to social services or other counselling providers, in the previous academic year.
■ For Indicator 3: Number of orphaned and vulnerable children (aged 5-17) identified by the school, who attended school and that received social support through the school in the previous academic year, excluding bursary support/fee exemption, in the form of:
a) Material support for education (e.g. uniforms, school books, etc.);
b) Food assistance (e.g. school feeding or take home rations);
c) Other forms of economic support.
Denominator (same denominator for all three indicators)
Total number of orphaned and vulnerable children aged 5-17 (OVC as defined by UNICEF) who attended school in the previous academic year.
Collection method
EMIS annual school census.
Disaggregation
The indicator should be presented as a separate percentage for:
■ Males and females
■ Age groups: 4 years and below; 5-9; 10-14; 15-17 and 5-17 years
■ Grade within school
■ Level of schooling – ECD, primary and secondary
■ Type of support offered (three categories),
■ Geographical location: urban, rural and peri-urban
■ Duration of orphaning in two-year groups.
Interpretation
These are proxy or indirect indicators,30 as they do not distinguish children who lost their parents due to AIDS from those whose parents died of other causes. However, in countries with a generalized HIV epidemic, the proportion of orphans who lost their parents due to AIDS is usually high and therefore these indicators provide useful data on the situation of orphaned children due to AIDS.
These indicators do not measure the needs of the orphaned and vulnerable children. Not all orphaned and vulnerable children need the same type of support and some orphaned and vulnerable children are more in need of external support than others. Therefore the desirable coverage of OVC does not have to be 100 per cent for each of the three indicators. It is up to each country to set a realistic target for each indicator based on an assessment of the real needs of OVC. For example, in some contexts it may be very difficult for OVC to attend school because of the cost of schooling, and therefore it would be expected that a large percentage of these children receive bursary support, including fee exemption, and/or social support (excluding bursary support/fee exemption) in the form of: a) Material support for education (e.g. uniforms, school books, etc.); b) Food assistance (e.g. school feeding or take home rations); and c) Other forms of economic support.
The findings from this indicator should be triangulated with the data from indicator # 13 on ‘current school attendance among orphans and non-orphans, aged 5-17 years’. If school attendance among orphans is low, and/or analysis of trends over several years show that school attendance is going down, this is perhaps because orphans are not provided with the type of support that would allow them to attend school. This could be confirmed by low percentages of OVC who received bursary support (including fee exemption), emotional/psychological support and/or material support for education and other forms of economic support. If both the school attendance rate and levels of support are low, this may indicate that school-based programmes targeting orphans and vulnerable children need to be improved and/or scaled up.
The findings from this indicator should also be triangulated with the data from indicator # 14 on ‘Percentage of students who permanently left school due to student illness or death in the previous academic year’. If the percentage of students who permanently left school due to student illness or death in the previous academic year is high, this may be linked to a number of orphaned and vulnerable children living with HIV who fell sick or passed away because they were not properly counselled and referred to facilities where they could have had access to care and support, including treatment.
It is important to measure whether there are any correlations over time between high percentages of orphaned and vulnerable children receiving different types of support through schools and a decrease in the number of students who permanently left school due to student illness or death, which would show that the education sector mitigates the impact of HIV and AIDS on orphaned and vulnerable children, including those who are living with HIV.
Biannual