By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Department of Social Development says that South Africa has a critical shortage of social service professionals, but government departments have effectively hit their limit in the number of workers they can absorb.
Responding in a written parliamentary Q&A this week, social development minister Lindiwe Zulu said that the government has tried to address the shortage of social service workers by setting up the Social Work Scholarship Programme.
However, beneficiaries of the programme have not been placed in the Department of Social Development or in the Department of Basic Education to be sent to schools where they are needed.
This is due to “budget constraints across the whole of government,” Zulu said.
She said that there is a critical shortage of social service professional skills in the country and that this has been acknowledged as one of the challenges for the social sector in the National Development Plan (NDP).
“To address this, the Department of Social Development is leading the Intersectoral Forum that is coordinating efforts in the development of a Draft Sector Strategy that seeks to bring on board sector departments for employment of social workers across government, including DBE (and) Health.
“The sector departments will submit a joint bid to the National Treasury to obtain funds for the recruitment and permanent employment of social work graduates,” Zulu said.
The minister recently said that workers who have gone through the department’s scholarship programme will find work, not only through the DSD and other departments but also through the private sector.
A group of unemployed social workers have lashed out at the department, saying that the Zulu and the DSD are discriminating against workers who have not gone through the scholarship programme.