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Family networks and primary education for Zimbabwe’s HIV orphans

Before the HIV/AIDS epidemic, orphans in Zimbabwe did not seem to suffer at school. Today HIV/AIDS orphans are at an educational disadvantage. The breakdown of extended family orphan care arrangements may be to blame.

A quarter of Zimbabwean adults have HIV. Nearly 10 percent of children under the age of 15 are paternal orphans (having lost their father), 2.7 percent are maternal orphans and 2.2 percent are double orphans. Orphan levels will rise over the next ten years as HIV-positive adults succumb to AIDS.

In traditional African cultures, the care and upbringing of children involves an extensive network of relatives. However, the extended family is under a lot of pressure from work-related migration and resettlement, inter-cultural marriage, western influences, misguided non-governmental organisation run programmes, poverty, the rising cost of living and HIV/AIDS. Effective community-based orphan support programmes must be based on good knowledge of extended family childcare arrangements. A study in Manicaland by the University of Zimbabwe looked at the impact of orphanhood and household arrangements on children’s education.

The research included a survey of 2,402 children of primary school completion age (13-15 years), in-depth interviews with children and their carers, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. It showed that:

18.4 percent of children aged 13-15 years are orphans.
Overall, more girls than boys complete primary school. Children are more likely to finish primary education if their household is of a higher socio-economic status or is headed by a parent or grandparent.
Primary school completion rates are lowest among maternal orphans, for whom the benefits of living with more educated household heads are outweighed by the negative effect of not living with a parent or grandparent.
Relatively high primary school completion rates are seen among paternal and double orphans, largely because they are more likely to live in a female-headed household.
After other household characteristics have been taken into account, death of a mother has a significant negative effect while death of a father has a significant positive effect on education.

Mothers are often more willing than fathers to make sacrifices to ensure that children get the best possible education. In addition, the extended family and means-tested government and NGO programmes play a greater role when the father has died as the mother is more likely to be in poverty. So, although maternal orphans live in more wealthy households, they need more help to complete primary education. The researchers recommend:

relaxing selection criteria for government and NGO assistance
setting up programmes to counter orphan stigma and to ensure fathers take financial responsibility for their children
selecting appropriate caregivers for orphans
establishing comprehensive and sustainable care arrangements by promoting the involvement of the extended family and wider community
encouraging increasing involvement of maternal relatives
mobilising communities to assist orphans and their carers
running more vocational training and community development projects to promote greater self-sufficiency.

Source(s):
‘Extended family’s and women’s roles in safeguarding orphans’ education in AIDS-afflicted rural Zimbabwe’, Social Science & Medicine 60: 2155-2167, by C. Nyamukapa and S. Gregson, 2005
HINARI subscribers can access the full-text article here. Full document.

Funded by: Wellcome Trust; World Bank; MEASURE Evaluation

id21 Research Highlight: 19 October 2005

Further Information:
Simon Gregson
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Faculty of Medicine
Imperial College
Norfolk Place
London W2 1PG
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7584 3279
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7402 3927
Contact the contributor: s.gregson@imperial.ac.uk

University of Zimbabwe

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