Impact Of Orphanhood On Education

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

In life, whatever somebody passes through, determines what the kind of behavior, attitude and values the person will hold. For so long different people have tried to find different factors that can lead to students’ high performance or low performance in school. Malawi government together with non- governmental organization has not been an exceptional. Different surveys have been conducted in order to find different factors affecting students’ performance for the country to have a high quality education. Among the already researched factors, orphanhood is one of factors that are affecting some students’ performance. The researcher’s concern is finding about the impact of orphan hood on education in Lilongwe. The researcher dwells much on the impact of orphanhood in secondary school students. And bases the impact of orphanhood depending on different factors especially, whether the students are taken cared of or not. The age they became orphans, whether they are double orphans or single orphans, there nutrition and environment. The researcher also recognizes the fact that the effects of orphan hood in primary school students is different with those in secondary schools especially looking at the issue school of fees and the difference in ages. The students also come from different families and some of them struggle in many ways in the secondary schools that they are schooling.

Background and Problem Statement

Among different other factors that are so crucial regarding the reason why other secondary school students do not do well in school regardless of the good teachers and a good environment, is orphan hood. Different researchers have already tackled this issue of orphan hood of which some of the researchers’ findings will be used in this research for more clarification.

Hypothesis

The researcher has been using the following intelligent guesses to come up with the relevant data to be obtained for the research.

The environment that the orphans are living, especially where they come from and who takes care of them has a great impact on the students’ behavior in school.

Orphans, who are traumatized by the death of parents, do not perform well in their education because they are psychologically disturbed.

Lack of school fees for the secondary school education will lead to high rate of orphans’ dropout in the schools.

The attitude that they have on school affect their performance.

Lack of role models for the orphan lead them to low performance.

Theoretical Framework

The researcher is basing the study on BronfenBrenner’s Ecological theory that relates the student’s socio-emotional development to the environment. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory consists of five systems that include microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, microsystem and chronosystem. Microsytem is the setting which the individual spends much time and it includes family, peers, school and neighborhood. Mesosystem includes linkages between micro system and includes family experiences and school experiences and between family and peers. Exosystem is at work when experiences in other settings in which a student does not have an active role, influence what students and teachers experience in the immediate context. Macro system involves the broader culture. This includes the roles of ethnicity and socioeconomic factors in children’s development. Chronosystem includes socio historical conditions in children’s development (Santrock, 2008, PP72-73). The theory is valid for this study because of its emphasis on the socio-emotional development since many orphans are affected emotionally

This study also includes the social cognitive approach to learning of Albert Bandura. The socio cognitive theory states that social and cognitive factors as well as behavior play important roles in learning. It states that, when the students learn, they can cognitively represent or transform their experiences. Bandura came up with a reciprocal determinism model that consists of three main factors that include, behavior, person/ cognitive and environment. These factors can interact to influence learning. Environmental factors influence behavior and so on (Santrock, 2008, 243). This theory also relates to the issue of how the experiences, environment and cognition interact of which is relevant to this study of the orphans.

Limitations

As much as the researcher has been zealous to conduct the research, there were many things that limited the research. The most crucial problem was that the researcher was financially limited to reach out to different places in research. The other thing was that some orphans did not want to give any information due to various reasons. The same also applied to some institutions who felt that the researcher was trying to spy on them or use the information for other reasons except for research. Some people who were supposed to be interviewed or given the questionnaire kept on postponing the dates which was also a big blow to the researcher because of the long distances. The issue of time was also a limitation to the researcher because of various other courses that the researcher had during the research period.

Definition

In this study the researcher will mostly use the words such as:

Orphan: Children from zero to eighteen years old

Orphanhood: The status of one or both parents

Single orphaned: A child who has lost one parent

Double orphan: A child who has lost both parents

Student: Both orphans and non-orphan learners

Education: the act of teaching and learning

The Assumption

The researcher’s assumption is that the orphans and the other students receive the same services from the teachers in such a way that there is no partiality between them. The researcher also assumes that the classroom environment is all the same of both the student and they also receive the same reinforcements from the teachers. The other assumption is that the students have almost the same physical, cognitive and emotional concerns, but the only difference that they have between them is orphan hood.

The importance of Study

Orphans are so many in this country and many of them are not attending schools because of various reasons especially what they are passing through. Some orphans are deprived of the education that other students are having due to so many circumstances surrounding their environment. As much as the government is trying its best to help orphans with different provisions eg Bursary, it is just a few who get that luck. This study is important because it will raise an alarm to different people in order to know the impact of orphanhood on education in secondary school students. The study will especially help the government to come up with better strategies that will increase the performance and school attendance of students going through such tragic situations. The study will also help the teachers in handling or teaching different students of which some are psychologically affected. The study will help the guardians of the orphans in gaining knowledge of how to take good care of the orphaned students in such a way that their performance is high.