All around the world, people are becoming more and more aware of the importance of educating children. People are realising that the best chance their children have of escaping poverty or moving up in the world, is to go to school, preferably past primary level.
In itself, this is a positive development. It has caused more and more children to be sent to school and to be given greater opportunities. However, unfortunately there is also a flip-side to the desire for education: children ending up in institutions.
Just like with poverty (read the blog HERE) there are many sides to why the desire for education is driving children into institutions. Some of these reasons are connected to poverty. In the most basic form this can be that if the child goes to school and does not work, there is no food for the child. So the child can only be allowed to go to school in a place where it is not only free, but where the child will be fed as well.
While more and more countries in the world are offering free primary education in state schools, this is still not the case everywhere. In places where schools, including state schools, charge registration fees, tuition fees, examination fees etc. many parents are not able to afford to send their children to school. And even in countries where education in state schools is free, this is up to a certain point, there are often still other costs involved that may be prohibitive for many families. This includes having to buy books, pencils, uniforms and having to pay for transportation to school.
When ‘orphanages’ offer free education – of varying quality – this can be a powerful drawing factor for parents and children. Either making them decide themselves to place the child in the ‘orphanage’, or allowing them to be persuaded more easily by child finders, who are recruiting children for ‘orphanages’.
Money is not the only factor, however. There is also the issue of access to a school. In many rural areas, particularly if they are in mountainous areas or on smaller islands, there may quite simply not be any school within manageable traveling distance. If no alternatives are offered, parents may feel that the only options left are for children to be sent to an ‘orphanage’ or to a boarding school – from which, due to the travel distance, the child may only be able to come home once a year during the summer holidays – in a city far away.
These are some of the ways in which the desire for education can cause children to end up in institutions, whether they be ‘orphanages’ or boarding schools.
After the other two main causes of institutionalisation have been described, I will post blogs addressing how these main causes can be taken away or at least significantly reduced in sustainable ways.
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