In impoverished north-eastern Ghana, there is an established pattern of young people leaving home to seek work, vocational training or formal education. Education planners need to learn more about the links between children’s migration and education.

An article from the University of Sussex, in the UK, draws on interviews with young Ghanaians to explore connections between their migration and access to education and training.

The British colonialist policy was to under-develop northern Ghana to encourage labour migration to the cocoa-growing areas of the south. The subsequent development programme, embarked upon by post-colonial administrations, has resulted in the socio-economically disadvantaged position of the north and high rates of poverty in the region.

From an early age, children in the region are encouraged to understand and to assume their role in domestic work, and in the production of household food and cash crops. Parents may decide to send away some young children, but by the time young people reach their teens, they often start making independent arrangements to relocate. Parents often regret their departure and their inability to meet their sons’ and daughters’ needs.

Frustration with the education system partly drives migration. Although theoretically free, Ghanaian schools usually demand payment for the purchase of school equipment and for participation in school activities, such as sports clubs. Items such as school uniforms, books and pens also need to be bought. Parents’ inability to meet these costs helps to explain the region’s high drop-out rates. Also, local schools are unattractive places. Children complain about poor facilities, the lack of books and teachers, being made to work on teachers’ farms, corporal punishment and sexual and verbal harassment.

Young people independently assess whether education is in their long-term interests. They know that only a high school certificate offers any real chance of secure formal employment. Their estimation of the likely value of education influences their decision to drop out or, alternatively, to travel in search of the chance to complete secondary education. Almost a quarter of migrant children interviewed reported that the desire to access formal and non-formal education was the main reason for leaving home. This includes the need to earn the funds necessary to enter into apprenticeships: for girls, typically tailoring, tie-and-dye, hairdressing and catering, and for boys, training as mechanics and carpenters.

Interviews with migrant children indicate that:

• School attendance reduces the likelihood of migrating.
• While relatives benefiting from their labour generally accept an obligation to help fostered children go to school, children become vulnerable if host families get into economic difficulties.
• Children sent to be fostered so that they might have access to education may find themselves being used as unpaid labour.
• Increasing school enrolment of children in southern Ghana is likely to increase the demand for family labour, especially domestic labour, which is then filled by children brought from the north.

The author urges education policymakers to:

• avoid simple assumptions that the desire for education is always positive, or that migration always interferes with children’s ability to access education
• acknowledge that migration can give some young people opportunities that might otherwise remain closed
• learn how links between children’s migration and their educational opportunities are influenced by: the general level of educational enrolment; parents’ commitment to sending their children to school; children’s own role in pursuing educational opportunities; the history of migration, and; the nature of inter-generational obligations and responsibilities
• commission further research into children’s independent migration.

Source(s):
‘Independent Child Migration and Education in Ghana’, Development and Change 38 (5), pages 911–931, by Iman Hashim, 2007
‘Exploring the Linkages between Children’s Independent Migration and Education:
Evidence from Ghana’, Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty Full document.

Funded by: UK Economic and Social Research Council and the Globalization and Poverty Development Research Centre, University of Sussex

id21 Research Highlight: 3 August 2008

Further Information:
Iman Hashim
Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty
University of Sussex
Falmer
Brighton BN1 2JS
UK

Tel: +44 1273 877568
Fax: +44 1273 673563
Contact the contributor: I.M.Hashim@sussex.ac.uk

Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, University of Sussex, UK

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