ABSTRACT
The factors that impact on the primary school education of children left behind by cross-border circular emigrants in a poor rural community are examined. Data collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions from the emigrants’ children, their teachers, guardians or parents and from community leaders gave insight into these factors. The findings showed that the main factor impacting positively on the education of the emigrants’ children was the ability of the parents to support their children’s education financially. The separation of the emigrants’ children from their parents was a factor that impacted most negatively on their education.
1. Introduction
Countries of southern Africa have for a long time been united in a network of labour migration in which South Africa has been the main country of destination. Zuberi & Sibanda (Citation2005:269) talk of the Southern Africa Migration System as a major, dynamic and self-sustaining labour migration flow that exists within the sub-continent between countries that have historical, political, cultural and economic ties. The Southern Africa Migration System was born out of the many years of migrant labour recruitment from Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe to South Africa’s mining and agricultural sector. As far back as the late eighteenth century, there were already well over 100 000 immigrants from the region in South Africa’s mines and farms (Zuberi & Sibanda, Citation2005:267). The industries used the poor temporary and circular migrant workers from the region in order to cut labour costs and maximise profits (Zulu & Sibanda, Citation2005:220). More recently, the changing socio-economic conditions of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa influenced by their liberation wars and their post-liberation struggles with corruption and poor governances have turned most of them into net sending countries. In the region, however, three countries – Botswana, Namibia and South Africa – have emerged as islands of peace in a region that is in turmoil (Shinn, Citation2008). These countries have attracted a high percentage of the regional labour migrants, with South Africa being the most dominant of the three. Oucho (Citation2010) estimates that South Africa, Namibia and Botswana are home to 34% of Zimbabwean emigrants.
Zimbabwe, post 1980, ceased the formal supply of mine workers to the then apartheid South Africa; however, the flow of circular workers from Zimbabwe to South Africa was not stemmed but merely reduced. Most of the Zimbabwean circular migrant workers who were already dependent on labour markets in South Africa continued to exploit the already existing migrant networks to access the labour markets as irregular migrants (Campbell, Citation2010). The advent of South Africa’s independence in 1994 saw a sharp increase in the number of migrants from Zimbabwe and surrounding countries into South Africa (Oucho, Citation2010).
The southern parts of Zimbabwe have traditionally been migrant worker-sending communities (Maphosa, Citation2009), sending migrant workers to South Africa and Botswana and later to Namibia. Several reasons explain the propensity of the people of these communities to circular migrant work. These communities are located in semi-arid regions and have an urgent need for income diversification from the traditional subsistence farming (Maphosa, Citation2009; Manyani, Citation2011). The proximity of these communities to the borders of Botswana and South Africa reduces the cost of migration, making circular migration attractive. These communities also share sociolinguistic ties with the communities immediately across the borders, which makes it easier for their members to create cross-border migration networks. The political dislocation of the people of this region has resulted in a lack of development, poor services and exclusion from the national economy and has resulted in restricted access to the national labour market, hence their attraction to migrant work.
Gwanda South district in Zimbabwe, where the site of this research is located, is an enclave between the South African and the Botswana borders. It is both a transit and a sending area for migrant workers. Manyani (Citation2011) and Maphosa (Citation2009) argue that migration in the southern parts of Zimbabwe is used as a livelihood diversification strategy by the families in those areas which are characterised by extremely low levels of development, poor rainfall and barren terrain. The dependence of the population on circular migrant labour has become so entrenched that the act of migrating to look for work is now a rite of passage into adulthood (Maphosa, Citation2009).
1.1. Education and development
Formal education is usually linked to development, and Harber (Citation2010) argues that this is because schools help to create citizens and a workforce for the future and thus define the direction of the future. Those who argue using the Human Capital Theory posit that education is an investment which is instrumental in the future development of individuals and economies. Education is seen as an investment in the individual and in the population that is necessary for industrial development and economic growth (Harber, Citation2010). Goldin (Citation2014) says that the notion of human capital encompasses the idea of investment in people, which results in an increase in the individual’s productivity and argues that education and training form a major component of the human capital.
In general, parents want their children to be successful in their careers and personal lives and believe this can be achieved through formal education (Van Wyk, Citation2010). Hence, parents endeavour to do their best to support the education of their children. Education in Zimbabwe is seen by individuals as a route to ‘salaried employment in the modern sector of the economy, providing security, affluence, prestige, and a modern style of life’ (Dorsey, Citation1989:40).
1.2. Education and migration
Research in the region on education and migration has been centred on the effects of remittances on education, and vice versa, and on the link between level of education and propensity to migrate (Shinn, Citation2008; Maphosa, Citation2009). The effect of the migration of parents on their children left behind has therefore only been researched in as far as the remittances benefit the education of the children.
This study explored the factors that impact on the primary school education of emigrants’ children – that is children who have one or both parents working abroad. The study focused on a single ward in the Gwanda South district of Zimbabwe to answer the following question: what factors related to the emigration of their parents impact on the primary school education of learners?
2. Methodology
The study adopted a qualitative approach with interpretive underpinnings as it sought to understand the phenomenon of parental emigration in relation to children’s education from the perspective of the participants and those involved. A single case-study design was adopted because the researchers sought to make an in-depth study in a single ward in the Gwanda South district. The site for this research, Ward 14 Gwanda South, was conveniently chosen because of its location in the heart of the traditional migrant-sending area.
Semi-structured interviews of about 30 minutes’ duration were conducted with the children and of 45 minutes to one hour with the adult participants. Focus group discussions lasting 45 minutes to one hour were also conducted with child participants living within the same homestead in order to facilitate lively exchanges. The interviews and the discussions were recorded using a digital voice recorder. Informal observations to verify the information obtained and to ascertain the context were made during the data collection process.
The sampling of the emigrants’ children was purposive. The criteria were for a primary school child, age 10 years and above, living in Ward 14, whose mother or father, or both, have been away in another country for more than a year in the past two years. It was necessary to employ the chain referral or snowball sampling techniques to locate the children who met the criteria within the sparsely populated ward. The total number of children sampled was 13. Once a child who met the criteria was selected, then the guardian of the child, the child’s register teacher, the head of the school the child attends and the head of the village where the child belongs were also asked to participate. These participants, together with the ward councillor, were deemed to be key stakeholders who could shed light on the study. This method generated a sample of 33 participants composed of 13 primary school children, eight parents/guardians, four teachers, four school heads, three village heads and a ward councillor.
The digital recordings of the interviews and focus group discussions were transcribed verbatim and then narrative analysis was used to compare the different experiences of the participants in order to obtain a general picture of these experiences. The data analysis proceeded through inductive coding, classifying and categorisation of the data into broad themes to give them meaning.
The principles of informed consent and confidentiality were upheld throughout the research. To gain access to the schools, written permission was obtained from the provincial education authorities and school heads. The councillor and the village heads were considered knowledgeable gate-keepers in the ward so their consent to participate and their assistance in negotiating access were obtained. Signed consent letters were obtained from all of the participants. All possible steps were taken to protect the child participants from harm. Assent for each child participant was obtained in written form from their parent, guardian or school authorities. The researchers ensured that the entire data gathering which involved minors occurred at home with the parent or guardian present within the homestead but out of earshot. The right of the participants to withdraw from the research at any point without any repercussions was explained to all participants in their local languages (IsiNdebele or SeSotho).
3. Summary of results
We present the results in two parts: first we clarify the context of the children of emigrants by examining who they are left with; and then we summarise the factors that impact on their education.
3.1. Who are the emigrants’ children left with?
Knowing with whom the emigrants’ children were left establishes the context of the children and creates an understanding of the magnitude of the impact of the various factors on their education ().
Table 1: Child participants and description of homesteads they live in
A description of the four different scenarios that were established follows.
3.1.1. Children in pseudo mother-headed families
Some of the emigrants’ children were left with their mothers and the mothers acted as the heads of families in the absence of the fathers. Homesteads H1 and H5 fall into this category. Having the mother present was considered by the interviewed guardians, all the three village heads and the councillor as the ideal situation that the children of emigrants could find themselves in since the children were with a parent who was socially tasked with their upkeep.
The mothers interviewed in homesteads H1 and H2 perceived themselves as second breadwinners for their families. They engaged in subsistence farming, growing drought-resistant small grains and maize, and engaged in animal husbandry. The three village heads and the councillor elaborated that some of the mothers left behind supplemented their family income by buying and selling wares such as second-hand clothing, cigarettes, matches, vegetables and fruits in addition to subsistence farming. With regard to the education of the children, the two mothers interviewed reported that they supervised their children’s learning and ensured that they went to school clean and were well-fed.
However, the pseudo mother-headed families also presented challenges for the learners. It was reported by the village heads that the mothers often had to juggle the role of parent and that of a spouse. This entailed frequent travel across the border by the mothers to visit their husbands. During these visits, the village heads explained, the children are left with little or no supervision and their school work suffers. With the mother away, the older children often have to take over her duties, such as caring for their younger siblings, looking after the livestock or guarding the home and crops in the field. ‘Whenever our mother goes away I have to stay at home and play with the baby’, said Mimi, the elder girl from homestead H5. She further explained that she is the one who cooks for and feeds the one-year-old baby when the mother is away, confirming what the village heads had reported.
3.1.2. Children left with extended family
In this group we combine children left in their parents’ homestead with a relative brought in to look after them (as is the case for H6) and the children who are moved to the homestead of the relative tasked to care for them (as in H2). The village heads and the ward councillor reported that in general, in Ward 14, most of the emigrants’ children were left in the care of their grandparents and occasionally with uncles, aunts and cousins. They described the situation in the extended family as characterised by a lack of control over the emigrants’ children by the guardian relative. They highlighted that the guardians’ lack of interest and supervision of the children’s education, which was sometimes compounded by their illiteracy, impacted negatively on the education of the emigrants’ children. The children participants left with extended family members (Daisy, Tebogo, Stha and Mpho) reported that they received very little, if any, assistance with schoolwork from their paternal uncle and grandfather respectively. The grandfather in homestead H2 confirmed that he could not help with the school work because of his failing eyesight and knee problems. The researchers observed that the grandparents in H2 who were left in charge of the children of emigrants were so old that they needed to be taken care of.
The emigrants’ children reported that they were often overburdened with work and responsibilities when left with members of their extended family. The boys (Mpho and Tebogo) reported that they were supposed to look after the livestock. The girls (Stha and Daisy) felt burdened with domestic chores, and both boys and girls were supposed to work in the fields. These activities drained their energy and wasted their study time, they complained.
3.1.3. Children in the care of hired adult help
Some of the emigrants’ children were left in the custody of a hired adult, the research established. This was the case with homesteads H3 and H7, although the village heads reported that there were many more cases in the village. Interviews with the hired adults in these two homesteads (H3 and H7) revealed that their job description was rather ill-defined as that of ‘looking after children’. Further inquiry into their duties revealed that they cook, clean and ensure the children are fed, but they rarely checked the homework or assisted the children academically.
The village heads did not seem to favour the idea of emigrants leaving their children with hired help because they said this opened up the possibility of the abuse of the children. The head of the village V2 reported that there were instances in his village where the hired help ended up being controlled by the children they were supposed to look after, resulting in a breakdown of authority. When this happened the hired help could not even question the children about school attendance. Duma and Kele did not report any abuse but that they received very limited assistance with homework and school projects from their helpers.
3.1.4. Pseudo child-headed families
Some emigrant parents apparently leave their children by themselves with no adult in charge, as was the case in homesteads H4 and H8. This situation was reportedly the most problematic. The adult guardians, the parents and the teachers interviewed felt that to leave children with no adult in charge exposed them to hunger, abuse and crime among other ills. With no direct monitoring by an adult, it was reported that absenteeism increased and so did the chances of children eventually dropping out of school. The head of the village V2 reported that some of the emigrants’ children left with no adult supervision in his village misused the money and food sent to them by their parents and eventually failed to pay their school fees and ended up engaging in transactional sex to supplement income.
3.2. Factors that impact positively on the emigrants’ children’s education
In this section, we summarise the factors that impact positively on the primary school education of the emigrants’ children.
3.2.1. Cash flow
The families of emigrants have the cash to pay fees and levies, to contribute to the development of the schools and to buy uniforms, stationery and take care of the educational needs of their children. ‘I feel motivated to work hard at school knowing that my parents can afford to pay fees for me’, said Kele from homestead H7. This was a feeling shared by all emigrants’ children, who reported that they felt motivated to work hard at school because of the knowledge that their parents could afford to pay fees and levies for them and provide for their school needs. This was a point confirmed by all of the teachers and headmasters in the four schools. Admittedly there were problems, which included late payments of fees and levies because of unreliable means of remittances. The councillor reported that he was aware of some emigrant parents who simply disappeared and cut connections with their families, but these were reported by participants as an exception and not the rule.
3.2.2. Donation to schools
Some emigrant parents were keen to donate cash to schools and to motivate their children’s teachers with a variety of gifts. Teachers within the schools reported that they received gifts that ranged from cash to groceries and items of clothing. One case in point was that of an emigrant father from homestead H7, who is based in South Africa, who facilitated the twinning of a primary school in village V2 with another in the United Kingdom. According to the school head, the twinning of schools proved to be highly beneficial because the local school eventually received donations of stationery that was enough to last for two years. Teacher exchange programmes were envisaged between the two schools.
3.2.3. Moving of children to better schools
It was reported by the teachers that the emigrant parents were among the few residents of the area who could afford to move their children to well-resourced schools, especially boarding schools. The schools in the district were generally in a state of dilapidation and operating with minimum resources. The researchers observed that some lessons in the schools they visited were conducted under trees, with children sitting on rustic benches carved out of tree trunks and writing with books on their laps. Parents from homesteads H1 and H5 reported that they would use the Grade 7 examinations to decide whether to move their children to a well-resourced boarding school or leave them in a local secondary school.
3.2.4. Exposure of children to technology and places
The children of emigrants were better exposed to modern gadgets that are now a requisite in the global knowledge economy. They were exposed to electronic devices such as cell phones and computers, the child participants reported. From time to time, some of the children of emigrants experienced different modes of transport as they went on holiday to visit their parents abroad. Teachers confirmed that these were valuable experiences that helped children contextualise their learning. ‘It is better to teach a child about the uses of electricity if they have used it’, explained one teacher. The exposure to technology and travel is a factor that impacted positively in the education of the children of emigrants.
3.2.5. Encouraging children to learn
The emigrant parents directly encouraged their children to learn and to put effort into their education, the children reported. Children participants reported that their parents talked to them and stressed the importance of having a good education. ‘My father always tells me that education will give me a better life’, said Madube from homestead H4. Encouraging their children to do well could build the children’s intrinsic motivation for education and, coupled with the economic support of the children’s education, this could lead to improved results in education.
3.3. Factors that impact negatively on the education of emigrants’ children
A summary of the factors that impact negatively on the primary school education of the emigrants’ children is offered in this section.
3.3.1. Difficulties in communication with emigrant parents
Although most participants reported that there were communication problems with emigrants, it was the parents and guardians who expressed most concern. The cause of poor communication was reported by the wards councillor as emanating from the district’s poor communication infrastructure: a dilapidated road network, an almost non-existent cell phone and telephone network, and a non-functional postal service. The researchers observed that only a few buses and taxis served the ward, and apparently the operators are discouraged by the poor state of the roads.
One guardian from homestead H6 reported that ‘Even if you have a cell phone you have to go up the mountain to make a call’. He was expressing that cell phone signal was weak and calls could only be made from elevated places like mountains. The school heads confirmed that telephones are available in their schools but are not for public use. However, at the discretion of the school management some messages deemed urgent or important may be received and relayed to members of the public verbally or as written notes through school children.
The emigrants’ children and relatives interviewed reported that they have resorted to the use of informal communication such as word of mouth and letters that are handed from one person to another, and to the use of informal cross-border transporters known as Omalayisha. The few buses that serve the district are also reportedly used to deliver messages.
Poor communication has direct and indirect negative effects on the education of emigrant’s children, according to the teachers interviewed. They elaborated that poor communication between the emigrants’ children and their parents results in the children’s school needs such as fees, levies, stationery and uniforms not being attended to as promptly. This has a direct negative effect on the children’s learning. It was reported by parents and guardians that poor communication meant that the emigrants’ families could go hungry or fail to deal promptly with crises like illness or death. ‘Children fall ill all the time and there is nothing we can do here without money’, said a mother from homestead H5, thus indicating their dependence on the emigrant breadwinner to resolve crises. Delays in crisis resolution in the emigrant families’ cause absenteeism as the children look for food or await money and resources to deal with the crisis.
3.3.2. Child neglect and abuse
The absence of parents from the home, especially both parents at the same time, invariably resulted in some level of neglect of the children. ‘Some of these children are no better than orphans!’ was how a Kele’s teacher summed up the level of neglect of some of the emigrants’ children within the school. The teachers reported that the common signs of neglect they observed were the late payment of fees, children looking hungry all the time, torn and dirty uniforms and the presence of lice on the child. Teachers reasoned that neglect tends to affect the children’s concentration in class, their general motivation and their self-esteem.
Teachers also reported that they observed signs of abuse in some of the emigrants’ children within the different schools. One teacher (who teaches Stha) reported that she had observed that some of the emigrants’ children within the school are tired and sleepy even during the first lesson of the day and explained that this could be a sign that they are overworked. ‘Sometimes, their guardians wake them up at night and send them to look for water’, she explained. The effects of abuse on children’s learning was reported by teachers to manifest as a loss of concentration and interest in school work, general lethargy, a lack of confidence and sometimes aggressiveness.
The parents, guardians and village heads confirmed that sometimes the children of emigrants in the area are abused and this is mainly by overworking them in doing domestic chores or in looking after livestock. They admitted that the emigrants’ children were more likely to be physically and sexually abused compared with the other children in the ward. The child participants (Kele, Daisy, Tebogo, Duma and Mpho) corroborated that they felt the treatment they received from relatives and hired helpers could never be as good as the treatment from their parents, but they did not report any abuse from the adults who took care of them.
3.3.3. Fear of crime
Some emigrants’ children, especially those living in homesteads where there was no male adult, reported that they lived in fear of crime. On further inquiry (from the village heads and the councillor) it was established that this fear could be based on reality. There had been reports that money, valuables and livestock had been lost through thefts from individuals, schools and homesteads. Incidentally, the village heads (for villages V1 and V3), the councillor and the parents linked the crimes in the ward to migration. They blamed the crimes on returnees and on strangers passing through the district on their way to the border. The councillor reported that some of the returnees had acquired ‘strange practices’ and hence their propensity for crime. On further interrogation it was revealed that ‘strange practices’ apparently referred to drunkenness, drug abuse, use of witchcraft and a general loss of respect for local customs and traditions.
The constant fear of crime is a factor that affected the emigrants’ children negatively in their schooling because it usually resulted in them missing out on learning. For example, they would sometimes miss school in order to look after the livestock when stock theft became rife, as was reported by Mpho. The children in homestead H4 reported that sometimes they would abandon their homes and move in with relatives and not go to school for fear of being captured by human traffickers. The teachers and school heads in all four schools confirmed that such rumours resulted in a low turnout at the schools.
3.3.4. Late payment of fees and levies
The late payment of fees and levies is another factor that negatively affected the emigrants’ children in their learning. The child participants and their guardians complained about the exclusion of the emigrants’ children from learning activities if they owed monies. However, the teachers interviewed contradicted this and reported that schools understood the plight of emigrant parents and their children and were as accommodating as they could possibly be. They explained that they never excluded children from school because of non-payment of fees because that was illegal. They reported that emigrants’ children could have been excluded because of delays in payment for things like school trips where they used a first-come first-served policy, but not from attending lessons. One teacher gave an example:
We usually have a trip to the Victoria Falls at the end of the year for grade 7s and we can only take those school children who have paid and in this way, these children you are talking about might miss out.
3.3.5. Lack of birth registration papers
Some of the emigrants’ children were without their birth certificates mainly because they were born outside the country or their parents never had the time acquire these documents for them. Throughout most of primary schooling this is not a problem, although schools demand these for registration a school head explained. It is only in Grade 7 that the lack of a birth certificate becomes an issue because the document is a pre-requisite for the registration for the watershed Grade 7 examinations. The Grade 7 examinations in Zimbabwe are a gateway to secondary school. Teachers and school heads reported that this problem has forced some pupils to repeat Grade 7 unnecessarily, and others to drop out of school. The lack of birth registration papers thus becomes a factor that negatively affects the emigrants’ children’s education when they get to Grade 7.
3.4. Factors that have an indirect negative impact on the education of the emigrants’ children
3.4.1. Divorce and family breakdown
Emigration apparently puts a strain on spousal relationships and this has resulted in many broken families within the ward. Reports of the long-distance relationship failing to work and leading to divorce were common in the ward, according to the councillor and the village heads. In their opinion, the infidelity of the separated spouses was a major cause of relationship problems. However, the grandfather from homestead H2 reported that even in situations where spouses emigrated together, a breakdown of relationships was not uncommon and the cause was usually centred on the distribution of remittances. ‘If the wife is sending remittances she would also want some of them to support her family, then they fight’, explained the grandfather. Teachers viewed family breakdowns as having the potential to affect the children’s education negatively because they take the parents’ attention away from their children’s welfare and, in the worst cases, the children are used as pawns in the fight between the parents.
3.4.2. HIV/AIDS
Teachers, parents, guardians and community leaders interviewed thought that the incidence of HIV/AIDS was higher in the emigrant families compared with the rest of the population and this had adverse effects on the education of the children. In the words of one grandfather: ‘They [the emigrants] come back as living skeletons every day and we are tired of burying them.’ He was satirically describing the emaciated state in which the victims of HIV/AIDS are usually repatriated and the large numbers that die and have to be buried. Some of the village heads – from villages V1 and V2 – went further to blame the migrants for ‘ … bringing this terrible disease to the district from other countries’. The illness or death of a parent who is a breadwinner in the poor rural area of Gwanda South has the potential for seriously disrupting the schooling of the child.
3.4.3. Stigmatisation and jealousy
Some parents (from homesteads H1 and H5) and guardians (from homesteads H4, H6 and H7) felt there was a stigma born of jealousy held by the community in Ward 14 against the emigrants and their families. This was said to manifest in viewing negatively everything that the emigrants did. ‘If you support your children, you are a bank robber or you have an ntikoloshi [goblin] … if you do not support them, then you are stupid or irresponsible’ – this is how a mother (from homestead H5) expressed her frustration with the way the community seemed keen to taint everything emigrant parents did by associating their achievements with criminality, witchcraft and irresponsibility.
4. Discussion
The availability of cash to support the emigrants’ children in Ward 14 seems to be an important factor in their education because it ensures that they stay at school and their school needs are catered for. The children are motivated by knowing that their emigrant parents can pay fees and levies and provide for their other needs like stationery and uniforms. The research established that some of the emigrant parents are also able to move their children from the under-resourced schools in the ward to better-equipped boarding schools elsewhere. This provides the children with a chance to break the poverty cycle that is gripping the community.
The emigrants’ children in Ward 14 are exposed to gadgets such as computers and cell phones; occasionally they also travel out of the district and even abroad in different modes of transport and obviously meet different people. This experience is deemed vital by the teachers of these children since it contextualises the children’s textbook knowledge. The emigrant parents are also eager to create good relations with the schools in the ward. They are keen to motivate the teachers of their children through gifts, and by making donations to schools seal the ties that should exist between parents and teachers. This makes teachers feel appreciated and opens communication channels and creates understanding and cooperation between the teachers and parents. When parents and teachers cooperate to educate a child, they become even more effective in their endeavour (Lemmer, Citation2007).
It could be argued that the emigrant parents seek to create and bestow vital social capital on their children which is seriously lacking in Ward 14. Social capital refers to the social resources that are available to children to aid their educational growth (Coleman, Citation1994). The fact that the child participants reported that their parents encourage them to put in maximum effort into their schoolwork further attests to emigrant parents’ efforts to bestow social capital on their children.
However, the absence of parents from their children’s lives seems to be the biggest factor that impacts negatively on the emigrants’ children’s education in Ward 14. The emigrant parents in Ward 14 cannot directly participate in the education of their children; they cannot assist them with homework, offer them emotional support or attend school meetings. Direct parental involvement in the children’s education has been identified as a factor that can vastly improve school success (Lemmer, Citation2007). Members of the extended family with whom some of the emigrants’ children are left seem to be already overburdened with other socio-economic responsibilities to involve themselves in the day-to-day education of the emigrants’ children. The prolonged absence of parents also leaves the emigrants’ children vulnerable to hunger, illness, abuse and crime, it was reported. This situation is not conducive to learning, especially for primary school-going children.
The father is the more frequently absent parent in the emigrants’ family. Although this is condoned by the community leaders in Ward 14, who perceive the father’s role in the family as that of the breadwinner, Thupayagale-Tshweneagae et al. (Citation2012) reveal that fathers play a parenting role way beyond that of being a breadwinner. Therefore, the frequent absence of the fathers leaves a gap in the upbringing of children. For the boy child it might mean that he grows up without a role model within the home. One of the recognised key roles of the father in the upbringing of children in the Ndebele and Sotho ethnic groups in Zimbabwe is that of instilling discipline in the boy child. The absence of the father might mean the boy child never properly learns discipline, yet discipline is recognised as a pre-requisite for formal education. Admittedly, the extended family does offer some measure of substitute parenting for emigrants’ children. Ward 14 community leaders reported that a large percentage of emigrants’ children are left with extended family.
The distance between the breadwinner, who in this case is the emigrant parent, and the children left behind usually results in the late payment of monies to the schools, which leads to the exclusion of their children from key educational experiences like educational trips, the teachers in the ward confirmed. The absence of a reliable means of communication and transport in Ward 14 serves to exacerbate the effects of this factor on the education of the emigrants’ children.
Negative factors which were revealed as affecting the emigrants’ families, such as the increased risk of contracting HIV and AIDS and the strain that migration puts on spousal relationships, have the potential to disturb the education of the emigrants’ children. The illness or the loss through death of a breadwinner through HIV/AIDS has the potential to disrupt a child’s education just as much as a divorce or the separation of parents can.
Gender differentiation in the impact of the factors is obvious. A girl child seems more vulnerable to the negative factors than a boy. She is more prone to abuse than a boy and bears more responsibilities. She is the one expected to run the home when the mother is away, as is the case with Mimi mentioned earlier. Therefore, the girl child is the one most likely to be absent in order to care for the younger siblings when parents are away. She is more likely to be the one working late into the night tiding the home after the other siblings have gone to bed.
5. Conclusions and recommendations
The study set out to explore factors that impact on the primary education of emigrants’ children in Ward 14 of Gwanda South in Zimbabwe. Factors that impact positively on the education of emigrants’ children were found to be: the availability of money to support the children’s education, the cordial relations that emigrant parents cultivate with schools and teachers through donations and gifts, the moving of the emigrants’ children to better-resourced schools, the exposure of the children to technology and travel, and the encouragement that the children receive from their emigrant parents.
Factors that impact negatively on the education of emigrant’s children were linked to the distance between the emigrant parents and their children. This distance created communication challenges and meant that the children’s educational needs could not be immediately attended to. The separation of the children from their emigrant parents also meant that the children did not have immediate assistance and morale support with their school work and activities. The children were also vulnerable to crime, abuse and neglect, all of which had a negative impact on their education. A high incidence of divorce and HIV infection was reported among the emigrant parents and this had the potential of disrupting the education of their children.
The entrenchment of circular migration in Gwanda district’s Ward 14 as a livelihood seems to be borne out of the lack of alternatives within the ward. The low rainfall coupled with the barren soils offer very little in the way of returns in agricultural ventures. The lack of economic development, which is a product of many years of government neglect of the region, means that there is very little viable employment within the district. This study revealed many factors that impact negatively on the education of children in the ward linked to circular migration. The ward and the district are so severely underdeveloped that if the circular migration alternative was not available as a livelihood alternative, this could lead to the vulnerability of more children.
As Zimbabwe moves from the post-crisis recovery phase into the developmental phase without the political polarisation that characterised the 2000–09 decade, it is hoped that the plight of the people from the region can be prioritised. Employment within the district needs to be created so that in situations where cross-border migration is obviously detrimental, as in the case of pseudo child-headed families, alternative livelihoods might be available.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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