Shock of 3-year-olds in boarding schools

Dar es Salaam. Some parents in Tanzania are sending children as young as three to boarding schools. This emerging trend denies the children much needed love and comfort, which can only be found at home.

Currently, there are no official figures available showing how many young children are sent to faraway boarding schools across the country. So how can this phenomenon be explained in Tanzanian society where children still form an integral part of the family?

The Citizen has explored several reasons why parents take their young children to boarding schools and talked to experts who gave their views on the same.

As the trend of taking young children to boarding schools continues to raise alarm bells, something needs to be done urgently. Perhaps setting the age limit for joining boarding schools would be a better starting point in reversing this trend.

Joseph* is a five-year-old boy who currently attends Martin Luther School in Dodoma. His grandmother decided that boarding school was a better place for him because his parents were going through marital problems which were affecting Joseph’s wellbeing. She also decided to ask the school’s administration staff not to allow anyone to visit Joseph without her approval.

Joseph’s case is unusual because boarding school is normally attended by more mature children, who are independent enough to care for and understand themselves in the first place and are usually part of that decision.

However, a new trend is emerging in Tanzania where parents are sending off their very young children, from the age of four, to school, far from home.

Boarding schools are becoming popular among many parents across the country and the number of children taken to boarding school has been increasing year by year which has caused a number of concerns among stakeholders.

For instance a number of psychiatrists and education stakeholders believe that children who are sent to boarding school at such a young age are completely denied their rights.

“It’s not right and we don’t encourage that,” says Augustine Njamasi, chairman of Tanzania Teachers Union in Dodoma Region. “I think that is a sign of laziness amongst parents who do that. A child needs to be raised by his or her parents at all times,” said the chairman adding:

“Parents might think that they are doing the right thing but in reality they are affecting their children psychologically, letting them learn how to cope more with the school environment rather than being at home because to them that is a strange place ,that means they are betting with their children’s life,” she says, adding:

“When a child grows up she or he ends up thinking that they are supposed to be raised at school. And this happens and is done by parents who have gone to school and believe that they know because of the education they have.”

What is the right age?

According to Njamasi five to six is the right age for children to be enrolled for preschool classes so that they can get the opportunity to understand and get used to the school environment.

“Here is when they get to learn how to read, write and count, these are basic and we advise that they shouldn’t spend a lot of time in school learning, that means it shouldn’t exceed more than five hours,” says Njamasi

Petro Ntemi a psychologist based in Dodoma posits that children taken to boarding school at such a young age tend to adapt what they see from others being good or bad.He said children tend to learn a lot of things all at once

“ I know some parents may be justifying in thinking that they are doing the right thing ,others would say because finding a house help nowadays is difficult or others use the excuse of work to dump their children in boarding schools. But in reality what they are doing can have a major impact to their children’s life.”

“Guardians and teachers teach them what they think is best and sometimes that might not be what you want your child to learn,”says Ntemi. He adds that children’s minds become stagnant because they don’t get the proper raising from the family. “This has a huge impact in their future lives, some of these children may become irresponsible depending on where and how they were being raised .Believing that for something to be done, then someone else must do it for them,” he adds.

The modern lifestyle

Ntemi also states that it is time to stop technology and other advanced developments to distract parents from their major responsibilities towards their children.

But while there is a big concern over children who are being taken to boarding school at such a young age, Marco Ng’holope , assistant head teacher at Martin Luther Primary School in Dodoma says that there are several reasons for the number of young children in her school.

“Life style is one of them; parents have little time to spend with their children because of work and because they don’t want to leave their children under the care of house help whom they fear might end up exposing their children to bad behaviour and so they decide to bring them to boarding school.”

He also attributes the issue of marital problems which cause some parents to fight for the custody of their children and they think if they take their children to boarding school it might solve the problem.

Not getting enough love and care

According to the assistant head teacher, almost 60 per cent of children come from Dar es Salaam and 121 children are staying in a boarding school.

He asserts that as a school, they have been doing their best to see that those children are given the best care possible.“We normally don’t try to disconnect these children from their parents, we create an environment for them to know that their parents care for them and wants the best for them. We give them best care we possibly can,” he says, adding:“During our time it was easy to ask a family member to help with the children but today that is not possible especially in town, life has become so hard that no one can afford to sit around and look for someone else’s child while he or she has to struggle to make a living too,” says Marco. Despite the fact that children are not being sent away, but are instead enjoying education, opportunities and facilities because their parents want the best for them, the assistant head teacher says these children are still exposed to risks. “Despite the work we do, it’s true that these children are faced with some risks both in a short and long run which include missing the love and care from their parents. Psychologically they might fail to value and respect their parents because they might see them like any other family member within the community.”

Lucy, a mother of three says that the idea of taking a child to boarding school doesn’t make sense as it is not fair for the child. Although she is a working mother, she still manages to make the time to come home and spend time with her children even though sometimes she can’t make it home very early. She doesn’t have a problem with having a domestic worker taking care of her children.

Benedict Missami, the assistant director for children development from the Ministry of Community Development, Gender and Children says that children need an early learning which they expect to get from the family.

He says parents have the responsibility of caring but as it happens most of them only know how to care and not to nurture.

“We don’t advise parents to shift the care of their children to other people especially at the critical years of a child development and growth which is one to three years,” says Missami adding:

“But today we have a problem of delegating parenting duties to others and that’s why we have been having parenting issues because children have been raised by people who don’t have parenting skills at all.”

Apparently children who are left to be raised by someone apart from their parents learn things which are not part of family values even after they become old enough they fail to understand which character or behaviour to show either the one they have been taught by the people who raised them or that from the parents. When they come home to the family they don’t know what is expected of them by their family and the community.

Missami says that what is missing is a law regulating the age children can attend boarding school. The education law should stipulate that schools aren’t allowed to take in young children.

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