Children of Migrant Fathers: The Effects of Father Absence on Swazi Children's Preparedness for School

Abstract

This article investigates the effects of prolonged father absence of Swazi migrant workers on their young children's preparedness for a formal school setting. As the role of formal schooling gains importance in Swaziland, so too does the impact that the home environment has on the formal schooling of Swazi children. The disruption of family life because of migrant labor may affect the development of Swazi children, and possibly their cognitive preparedness for school. Formal education as it is known today is not indigenous to Swazi society. At independence, most African countries inherited educational systems designed by Europeans who applied Western criteria. An important consequence of this is that institutions of formal learning today remain based on cultures which are quite distinct from those of Africans. Western formal education strives for change and creates discontinuities. By contrast, traditional education strives for continuity between generations, whereby parents and older relatives teach youth about their accumulated knowledge, ways, and traditions. Felix Boateng stresses that the success of traditional African education is in its ability to promote intergenerational communication. Even though traditional education may often be conducted using such abstract messages as proverbs, the intended lesson is always pertinent to a child's immediate environment.1 Traditional education is less verbal and less theoretical, placing more emphasis on active participant observation than does imported European education, which relies on curriculum and an abstract examination system often in conflict with the child's immediate surroundings. For instance, John Gay and Michael Cole's research in Liberia reveals that Kpelle children begin formal schooling using cognitive constructs, language patterns, and a knowledge base that hinder their learning certain mathematical concepts using Western-biased methods. The significance of traditional learning at