To: The Department of Education
Demand all public schools in South Africa to have school social workers
In a Portfolio Meeting on Social Development convened to address issues raised in a petition submitted by unemployed social workers in November 2023, these were some of the discussion pointers: "It is unacceptable that some schools do not even have a social worker to deal with issues in the school setting. Further, the prevalence of substance abuse in the communities is shockingly high and this is linked to the fact that there are no social workers in schools. This continues to raise social ills such as drug abuse and teenage pregnancy in the communities which ends up being a problem for the Department at the cost of taxpayers' money.
Ms A Hlongo (ANC) thanked the unemployed social workers movement for appearing before the Committee. The frustrations brought to the Committee are understandable and should be closely examined so that they are addressed. Amid these concerns, it is appreciated that the Department is the one that initiated the programme to take young people to school to study social work and due to other reasons, it has been hard to place these graduates in employment. It is, however, hoped that through working with other departments, DSD will find innovative ways to place unemployed social work graduates" However, despite some of these conversations, very little effort has been put into ensuring that schools have social workers placed in-house. Read more here: https://pmg.org.za/committee-meeting/37857/