EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE PROBLEM OF DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN IN SUB SAHARAN AFRICA AND THE SUGGESTED WAYS TO HALT THE PROBLEM

Written by Kato Ans.

Disadvantaged children includes children living in severe poverty, children affected by HIV/AIDS, children who are physically, sexually and emotionally abused, malnourished children, children affected by conflicts in communities, children in abusive labor, and street children.

 
The following details are addressing clearly the magnitude of the problem of disadvantaged children in the Sub-Saharan Africa:-

Today, over 15 million children in the Sub-Saharan Africa region have been orphaned by AIDS and numbers are rising rapidly. In Zambia, 13 to 15 percent of all children in the age of 0 to 18 are orphans; this number was projected to increase from 650,000 to 1.7 million by 2010. In Kenya, the proportion of orphans to total child population was 6 percent and this number was expected to increase to 16.5 percent in 2010. In Zimbabwe, orphans were estimated to 17 percent of all children, and this number was projected to increase to 25 percent of child population by 2010. In Uganda, the total number was estimated to be between 1.4 million and 1.7 million. However, Millions more are living with chronically ill parents, and about three million children are themselves infected with the virus. When parents fall sick, particularly in poor families, children come under intense stress that may continue in different forms for the rest of their lives. They may be taken out of school to farm land or to raise income elsewhere. They may also become caregivers themselves or even heads of households. In many cases, such children become increasingly vulnerable to malnutrition, ill-health, abuse and exploitation. 

Children in abusive labor, studies show that African has higher proportional on child labor than any other regions with 41 percentage of children bellow age 14 in the labor force. Indeed, the proportion of child labor in Africa is almost twice in the Asian rate. The most extensive market for child labor in Sub-Saharan Africa, is for domestic services. However, gender biases exist due to the fact that girls work long hours than boys, and unfortunately, much of their work is not seen as child labor rather as housework. Around 13 million children domestic servant mostly girls in African cities are paid extremely low wages, are made to work extremely long hours and subject to physical and sexual harassment. 

Vulnerability to child soldiers, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, believes that there current more than 120,000 children under the age of 18 participating in armed conflicts across Africa. Recently, the countries most affected by this problem have been Angola, Burundi, Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda. Many of them are former street children who left their homes in wartime, afraid of being killed. In other countries like Angola, Sudan and Uganda, many boys are abducted into the military to fight, while young sisters are captured to be domestic and sexual slaves.

Vulnerability to malnutrition and ill-health. It is generally held that, maternal orphans are at greater health risk following the loss of their primary caregiver. Studies shows that children who had lost fathers were more likely to be malnourished than non-orphans. It was found that surviving fathers in Uganda provide more care than mothers because, it is suggested, the fathers have more means, and the husband’s relatives often deny widows the opportunity to look after the orphans.
In a Ugandan study, 15 percent of children whose parents were infected with HIV and 19 percent of orphans self-reported as being in very poor health. One-third of older children living with an HIV-positive stated that there were some days when they did not get enough to eat. When a parent falls ill, children often shoulder new responsibilities including domestic chores such as cooking, cleaning, carrying water and doing laundry, care giving activities such as feeding, bathing, toileting, giving medication and accompanying relatives for treatment, growing food or being involved in income generating activities and childcare duties.These extra responsibilities can have serious implications for a child’s schooling.

Vulnerability to household food insecurity and poverty, the regional study finds some evidence of the increasing burden of orphan care becoming manifest in food security indicators. Thirty-eight percent of households with more than one orphan were classified as “food-insecure with child hunger” and those with chronically sick members were also found to be more food-insecure. Findings from a community-based baseline study in eastern Zimbabwe shows that Paternal orphans were significantly worse off in terms of ownership of household assets. Orphans were also more likely than other children to be found living with household heads who had received no school education and/or who were currently unemployed, and were found disproportionately in rural households headed by women, elderly people and adolescents.

Poor nutrition, every year millions of children in Sub-Saharan African, enter school with learning impairments stemming from malnutrition, ill health and poverty. Children who suffer nutritional deprivation in malnutrition during the early years of life, are at risk of developmental delays that later affect learning process, they tend to score worse on test of cognitive function and development. Maturation is also related to late entry in school and the risk of dropping out before completing.

However, the following are the suggested ways that can be used to halt the problems associated with disadvantaged children in Sub-Saharan Africa:-

Education subsidies, subsidizing education fees of orphans could became the main means of promoting placement of orphans with extended families and the chief merit of this intervention is that it supports investments in children without encouraging child labor. Moreover, school subsidies for orphans who are not in school would benefit orphans for the following reasons, first, education subsidies would give orphans the opportunity to attend school when school fees are prohibitive, second, orphans would be better integrated socially into the local community life, and third, orphans would have marketable skills, making them more productive members of society. Generally, subsidies for orphans and other vulnerable children already enrolled in school would allow foster families to save on education costs and increase their consumption of other goods and services, potentially improving the entire household’s welfare.

Health and nutrition subsidies, this strategy can lengthen the life expectancy of orphans; improve children ability to attend school and their learning achievement while at school, enhance their productivity as they become adults and prevent increased health care costs and social protection
later in life. In making this strategy successful, education of health workers therefore must be of an overall in orphan care.

Family tracing and reunification, finding close relatives of children orphaned by armed conflicts requires a program of tracing and reunification: registering, enumerating orphans and locating and reuniting them with their family members, this strategy can also be used to serve street children. However, tracing may be only the first step in protecting vulnerable children. Typically, it is a one-off investment, provided that relatives are found, that they are willing to foster the child and that they have the means to do so, if not, other means of caring for the children must be found.

Effective provision of maternal health services and prevention of HIV infections via newborns, the Governments in collaboration with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), should strongly improve the provision of health and maternal services, so as to increase the possibility of child survival. For instance, HIV/AIDS prevention between expectant mothers and neonates is very crucial. Some vulnerabilities occurs as a result of low birth weight where by a child’s weight becomes less than 2,500 grams and this can result to the risk of developmental delays. Therefore, improvement in maternal health services will reduce the problem of disadvantaged children.

Sub-Saharan Africa countries are most victims of the problem of disadvantaged children than elsewhere all over the World. This is proved by various studies and researches made over this region in different periods. This situation has been energized by various factors including; extremely poverty, civil wars and epidemic diseases especially HIV/AIDS. However, Sub-Saharan Africa countries should apply effective measures for instance complying effectively with The Global Trends on Early Childhood Education (CRC, EFA goals and MDGs) in order to ensure the future brilliant generation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Foster, G. & Williamson, J. 2000. A review of current literature of HIV/AIDS on children in Sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS, 14:275-284. USA, U.S. Agency for International Development.

UNAIDS 2006. Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic. UNAIDS, Geneva.
 

The United Nations Children’s Funds (UNICEF), New York. November, 2003.
 

World Bank, 2000. “Exploring the implications of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic for Educational Planning in Selected African Countries: The Demographic Questions” Act Africa, August.