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Working class
The
impact of work on Tanzania’s students
Working children are common in developing countries. The cluster of
young street vendors seen at traffic lights belies the largely invisible
mass of working children. They are at home cleaning, cooking and caring
and provide the household’s fuel and water. They are busy tending
crops and livestock and, sometimes, they are paid for their labour. But
how long do they spend on these responsibilities? How does their work
affect their capacity to participate in the schooling offered to them?
It is easy to agree that the worst forms of child labour, such as prostitution
and mining, should be eliminated. The point at which forms of work become
acceptable for children is harder to agree and will depend upon whose
perspective is taken whether that of developed Western countries, parents
or the child itself. It is assumed, at least from a financial outlook,
that the working child will remain a feature in Tanzania for a considerable
time to come. The working child’s life, with its loss of the right
to education and burden of economic responsibility does not have to be
condoned but it must be accepted and every possible step taken to make
it easier for children to access education.
A study supported by a grant from the UK’s Department for International
Development aimed to determine what work children undertake in Tanzania
and how it impacts upon their ability to access primary education. Researchers
from the University of Bristol’s Graduate School of Education and
the University of Dar es Salaam’s Department of Educational Planning
and Administration gathered data in four districts representing urban,
peri-urban, rural and "remote urban communities", from children
between the ages of 7 and 14, their parents, teachers and other adults.
The research found that:
- Among the children registered as being in school (the majority
of children in the study) reported school attendance was never more
than
80% and
in rural areas was never above 68%.
- Despite the wide age range of the children in the study, no significant
differences were noted in the findings between the ages.
- Girls and boys generally work comparable hours, from 1 - 3 hours
during the week, on a wide variety of tasks.
- Girls are more like to be involved in more intellectually demanding
work such as selecting and cooking correctly the family meals,
or caring for infants. Because these are time constrained activities,
girls tend
to spend less time per day at school than boys despite having a
better daily attendance rate.
- Poverty, as indicated by low income or access to resources such
as land, is the essential factor within the household that drives parents
to keep their children working at home or to take waged employment.
- Despite working, often long hours, both boys and girls report
having periods of free time when they could undertake out of school
studying.
But this time is not used in a structured and efficient manner
with, for example, very little homework being provided by the schools.
Policy recommendations from the study include:
- Adopt adult learning techniques, such as flexible attendance patterns
to bring education to the working child rather than the child to
education, while setting criteria for acceptable levels of work.
- Develop more efficient home learning, distance education and self-instructional
materials suited to the needs and abilities of young children eg,
using the work children do at home as a basis for learning tasks such
as
measuring activities or handling of simple finances.
- Provide a flexible, local education system sympathetic to the
needs of the working child; children from fishing communities for example,
may work in the early mornings and only be able to attend school
later
in the day.
These recommendations are not meant to further exclude children from
the normal school environment or to stigmatize any further those who
cannot attend regularly. All children in the sample were involved in
some substantial work commitments. Some would benefit from simple well-designed
homework to supplement their school work, others from proper remedial
help when they are at school, while others - to a greater or lesser
degree, depending upon the season - might require more radically different
provision to help them from falling too far behind when they are forced
to absent themselves from school for extended periods.
Roger Garrett
Graduate School of Education
University of Bristol
35 Berkeley Square
Bristol BS8 1JA
T: 0117 928 7042
r.m.garrett@bristol.ac.uk
Hillary Dachi
Department of Educational Planning and Administration
University of
Dar es Salaam
Tanzania
hilldachi@yahoo.com
See also:
Dachi,H.A., and Garrett, R.M. 2003, Child Labour and its impact on
children’s
accesses to and participation in primary education: a case study from
Tanzania. London, DFID
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