Don’t Let Boarding Schools Replace ‘Orphanages’

As more and more governments start to transition care from institutional to family-based alternative care, and donors increasingly become aware of the harm that institutionalisation causes children, the orphanage industry (running ‘orphanages’ for profit) is falling apart. Removing children from their families, putting them in institutions and calling them orphans was once so profitable, foreign donors and volunteers would be queuing to bring in money. Now, it is becoming harder and harder to convince donors to hand over their money for institutional care. So, people running residential childcare institutions are looking around for other options.

It is increasingly starting to look like they have found one: boarding schools. This appears to be effective. In various countries, there is an increase in the number of boarding schools, in conjunction with the closure of ‘orphanages’

This is not surprising, for a number of reasons. To start with access to education is a major driver of institutionalisation of children. In many places, parents are unable to afford the fees connected to sending their children to school and/or there is no school within travelable distance of the community. In these cases, sending a child to an institution is a way of ensuring that they get an education. Another reason is that when money is raised for providing children with an education, this sounds sensible and important. Very few people are going to see red flags here and money will definitely be coming in.

What is important to understand is that in many places boarding schools are de facto residential childcare institutions. Children do not necessarily go home during holidays and may not be in contact with their family at all while they are there. The fact that they do not go home might be because the school won’t allow it – for fear that they won’t come back – or because the distance and associated travel costs make it impossible for families to come to pick up their children every (or any) holiday. Despite the fact that children live in these places for years, generally speaking, there is little or no care provided (after all, it is a school, not a ‘home’). This means that all the same harmful effects found in ‘orphanages’ are present in these boarding schools too.

Children with disabilities are even more likely than other children to simply be moved from alternative care institutions to boarding schools when transition of care takes place. Particularly, if inclusive education is not accessible in all communities and if parents are not provided with the support and services they need to be able to take care of their child at home.

The initiative to set up more boarding schools does not just come from the managers of institutions looking for another way to make money. I have also come across a headteacher who was looking to convert her school for day pupils with disabilities into a boarding school, now that alternative care reform was being initiated in the country.

We need to be very vigilant about this. If you want to support education for children, support programmes that set up (inclusive) free schools in remote communities. Or other projects that ensure that children are not separated from their families just to get an education.

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