Abstract

This study sought to find out why street children have limited or no access at all to basic education. It sought views from street children themselves and parents/guardians on what could be the best way forward for these children to go to school. The study further assessed the role NGOs play to meet this basic need for street children in the Municipality of Zomba. Although the study used both qualitative and quantitative approaches, it was predominantly a qualitative case study. As such, it employed a mixed method to data collection, which included in-depth interviews, direct observations, questionnaires, focus group discussions (FGDs) and documentary search. Qualitative data was developed into themes, concepts and categories and was subsequently interpreted in a trustworthy manner so as to reflect true meaning of the data. In other words, explanations were attached to each category in an attempt to give the meaning of the data. Quantitative data in the study included numbers of street children and their age. Microsoft Excel and SPSS were used to analyse quantitative data in tables. The study found out that the majority of street children do not go to school mainly because of poverty. Other major barriers to street children’s access to basic education relate to poverty. These include lack of food (hunger), lack of clothes including school uniforms, lack of parental care and parental responsibilities. Basing on these findings, and poverty being the major barrier to basic education, the study recommends that Government should empower parents/guardians by giving them agriculture input or business loans for them to improve their economic capacity. This could help those with interest to send their children to school. On children failing to go to school because of hunger, the study recommends that Government should consider spicing the FPE policy with a feeding programme to influence poor parents/guardians to send their children to school. And finally, the study recommends that Government should establish Residential Institutional Care centres where among other basic needs, provision of basic education should be the primary focus. Of course, these recommendations should be understood within the context of the studied group. Otherwise there is potential for different and expanded recommendations if iv one replicated the study to cover the entire country. In other words, the recommendations of this study are at best mere illustrations of otherwise a complex phenomenon.

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School	: School of Education
Issued Date	: 2007

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