Is school dropouts challenge a seething time bomb?

His involuntary leapfrog into maturity, that saw him partly fend for the family and himself, only got with him when he was thirteen after his father had passed on. He now lives with his mother and relatives, relying on a host of activities, including farming and providing labour at a neighbouring artisanal mine in Gitwa village.

He says that their yields from the small family land could not allow them get surplus produce for sale to meet basic domestic needs.

“Sometimes we used to sleep on empty stomachs. In the morning, we had to walk to school, hungry and hopeless,”

With hunger biting most of the time, hoping against hope seemingly an insurmountable task, going to school became a luxury in Niyodusenga’s eyes and experience.

“I decided to drop out of school. My mother was, too, of little help. Then I started to look for what to do. I joined my friends working in nearby illegal mines in Gitwa village, who, I supposed, were earning enough money to finance their luxuries,” he said.

Niyodusenga, is one of the many children that have dropped out of school in Rutongo Primary School with many continuing to follow suit–male and female alike.

Take an example of Yvette Tuyishimire, 18, from Gitwa village who was studying at Rutongo Primary school and dropped out at fifteen in 2015 after completing Primary six and started fetching water to use in mineral washing.

Tuyishimire says that she was influenced by her female colleagues who had been working there.

“After completing primary six, my family was unable to pay school fees for me to proceed with secondary education. When I was home, my colleagues used to tell me that they are earning enough money in mining-related activities, so I finally joined them,” she explained.

Tuyishimire says that they used to fetch water five kilometers away from mining quarries. She used to fetch at least 15 cans a day from 5:00am to 2:00pm. She used to earn Rwf150 per jerrycan , making over Rwf2000 a day.

“I used to come back home always very tired. My colleagues who used to enter inside the mining quarries to dig faced sexual assaults; like where men wanted to sleep with them,” she said.

Currently, both children are back to training, acquiring vocational skills, thanks to a local non-government organization Syndicat des Travailleurs aux Services des Droits Humain (STRADH) which support them and other colleagues.

Niyodusenga and Tuyishimire are among the tens of thousands of children that drop out of school every year. School drop-outs are a concern that touches parents, local leaders, head teachers and children.

The active antagonism between the quest for knowledge and the bogging effects of poverty, the clamor for survival and the apparent availability of jobs on farms, mines, lakes and rivers (the subsistence hubs) do create a complex situation that requires further scrutiny and study than a mere news article.

The situation becomes even more complex when one considers that it’s not grown up adults that seek jobs from those subsistence hubs but their children, instead, do. Is it because children are cheaper and easy to exploit? Is it owing to their physical prowess, better than the adults who are mostly widowed and elderly? Is it because adult labour cannot be mobilized across geographical distances? Nevertheless, has any study been carried out to establish whether there are no able-bodied women and men in the localities to work those subsistence hubs or is it because labour is in short supply in such poles?

These and more salient questions require more than a mere news article.

But at least we can contend In Kabacuzi sector of Muhanga, the causes seem to be as many as the dropouts themselves. Poverty and parents’ poor mindsets, however, seem to be the most dominant.

Judithe Dusabemariya a resident of Gitwa Village (a village with many Mining quarries both legal and illegal) says that poverty forces many children to drop out of school.

Dusabemariya has two sons working in the Gitwa mines. She says she could not afford sending them to school after completing primary.

“There are children working in mines and can earn some money to support themselves in getting the basic needs. This entices many others (peerism) to drop out of school and join the wagon,” says Dusabemariya.

“My sons were clever in class, but I didn’t have money to pay for their school fees in secondary school yet they were strong enough to do menial jobs for money and food. That’s how they ended up joining mining activities,” she said.

Marie Odette Nyirahabimana, the Head Teacher of Groupe Scholaire Butare, in Kabacuzi Sector of Muhanga District says that children from poor families are easily enticed by the available jobs, the money and parents’ inability to support them. But peer influence from those that joined the mines before and seem to have improved their welfare is very magnetic to pulling others.

“When a child spends two hours there and gets over Rwf5,000 it attracts many to join these activities,” she said.

“However, there is also a mindset problem behind dropouts, because not all children from needy families do drop out of schools,” she added.

The Executive Secretary of Butare Cell in Kabacuzi Sector, Plautilla Uwanyirigira says poor mindset among parents is another big challenge.

“Though the problem is being addressed some parents send their children to work the mines and bring them money. There might be poverty issues, but all children from poor families do not drop out of school. It is a mindset problem really,” she said.

In 2015/2016 academic year, in Muhanga District figures show that the dropout rate was at 4.8 per cent in Primary, 6.0 per cent in lower secondary and 0.3 per cent in upper secondary education.

In 2015-2016 Kabacuzi Sector identified 244 children who dropped out of school to engage in different forms of labour in mines.

The Kabacuzi Sector Education Officer, Servand Nshimiyumuremyi told IGIHE that in 2017 they had 108 students who dropped out of school in primary and 55 in secondary at the sector level.

Marie Odette Nyirahabimana, the Head Teacher of Groupe Scholaire Butare, in Kabacuzi Sector of Muhanga District said that last year, the school had 40 dropouts, 18 in primary and 22 in secondary.

Nyirahabimana explained that the numbers of dropouts are mostly higher in primary and Secondary School’s Ordinary level. She said that students in upper secondary continue to study as they desire to get diploma.

She said that in a move to end school drop outs, they always collaborate with parents and take students back to school.

School dropouts is not a challenge of Muhanga alone.

Recently, the Director of Education in Ngororero District, Protogène Niyonsenga said that students estimated between 3000-4000 from different Primary schools in the district dropped out of schools due to different reasons.

In Ngororero, at Groupe Scholaire Bwira alone, they registered 186 drop-outs in 2017.

According to the 2013 Education Sector Strategic Plan (ESSP), the Ministry of Education is targeting to improve the efficiency of the education system, by reducing repetition and dropout rates.

They targeted to reduce the dropout rate from 10.9% in 2012 to 5.7% in 2017.

At lower and upper secondary level, the dropout rate was targeted to fall from 13.1% in 2012 to 11.3% in 2017 and from 2.4% to 2.2% respectively.

Speaking about the progress towards reducing school dropouts, the State Minister for Primary and Secondary Education in the Ministry of Education, Dr. Isaac Munyakazi said that through the current national wide education campaign, fighting against anything that could lead to school dropouts is among their targets.

He said that through the campaign, they are gathering last year’s school drop outs numbers though he believes that they were reduced.

“Based on how students are congested in classrooms, I can affirm that most of them have really returned back,” he said.

About children who drop out of school and involve in income generating activities, Munyakazi said that the ministry continues to fight child exploitation.

He said that the Ministry and partners have committed to conduct follow-up on students who miss classes and know the reason behind, he said the approach helps to take back to school these with ambitions to drop out.

“Regardless of whether a child is of working age, when they are ought to have been to school, we order them to. We balance the priority between class and money. If the government constructed schools for children to study, why should people exploit them, for the government we care about benefits of the child than age,” he said.

Figures from the Ministry of Education show that in the Academic Year 2015/16, the national dropout rate in primary schools was 5.7 per cent, 6.5 per cent in lower secondary and 2.5 per cent in upper secondary education.

It has been observed that some children drop out of school and engage in child labour in different economic activities including; agriculture, fishery, mining and working as domestic servants , among others.

For example in Nyabihu District, there used to appear some cases of children working in tea plantations. However, currently, officials say that the problem was reduced.

“That problem has been terminated as some people who were caught involving children in these activities were penalized,” said Bosco Vumera, the Nyabihu District Education Officer.

According to Jean Damascène Gasarabwe, the Managing Director of Nyabihu Tea Estate the problem ended ten years ago. He said that their system cannot allow them employing children.

“These working in tea plantation are paid on bank accounts and should have identity cards. We also pay social security fees for them, so, the process makes it clear that we can’t employ children,” he explained.

He said that tea companies need to have different international standards where they are awarded after conducting different audits. He said that a company employing children could not get any certificate.

“We are no longer having a problem with employees as the price of tea has increased and provide good salaries to people with working ages,” he added.

According to Gasarabwe, children who can be found today in such activities work as ‘family labours’ where they help parents in their own tea plantation farms during the holidays.

Emile Mukunzi, the Education Officer in Bugesera District told IGIHE that cases of children who used to work in fishery have ended as fishers work from cooperatives which have standards to follow.

He said that students used to work in rice farms, but following government’s efforts to end school dropouts, the case was ended.

“We used to see those cases in 2016 and people who were found employing children were fined,” he added.

The above claims of child labour elimination not withstanding, the Ministry of Labour (MIFOTRA) early February 2018 announced that 352 people and institutions were were arrested and penalized by law in the year 2016/2017 for engaging child labour.

The officer in charge of Social Security and Child Labour Control at MIFOTRA, Damien Nzamwita says that the monitoring exercise will continue until they eliminate child labour.