Earn-and-Learn: Schools on Tea Estates in Zimbabwe
Witness is a bright lad of fourteen, who had just finished his primary schooling when I met him. He lived with his widowed mother, grandfather and younger sister as guests on a small tea farm in a remote area in the Chipinge District of eastern Zimbabwe. His mother had a small plot on another farm, and earned some money from casual farm labour. Witness had contributed to his school expenses herding cattle for the farm owner at weekends and school holidays, and undertaking other light piecework, like picking tea, which is sold to a large tea estate nearby for processing and international sale. The international campaign against child labour did not stop Witness, and children in a similar situation, from working. The tea he picked found its way into the international markets unnoticed.
The campaign did, however, stop his schooling. He was hoping to enter an “earn-and-learn” secondary school on a nearby tea estate, where pupils pay for their schooling, and get an income besides, by contracting to work on the estate when not at school. His application for admission was turned down. Because of international pressure, the company that ran the school had stopped admitting children under 16: in this way they avoided child labour on the estate and no longer helped needy children. With no other hope of getting to secondary school, Witness was faced with herding cattle and picking tea for another two years.
Several years ago, I spent several weeks, staying at one of the earn-and-learn schools (see photo), speaking with pupils (some of whom started working well below the minimum age for employment), their teachers, some of their families, management and workers on the estate, and people living and working in the area.
Life for the pupils was hard. Pupils complained of dangers and injuries in the fields, but these appeared rare, and pupils had access to the estate clinic. In the peak season, they got up early for a full morning’s work picking tea before school in the afternoon. In the off season it was easier: school in the morning followed by perhaps two or three hours in the fields. Work and school left little time for play or even sleep. Not a few found life too difficult and dropped out; those who were there wanted improvements, but not an end to the system. Indeed, after my research, school was given more priority, taking place in the morning; working hours were cut; and there was some attention to refreshments during work and protection from hazards.
Everyone knew that life was hard for the pupils, but I was repeatedly told by all kinds of people that the schools served a useful function, and many in the neighbourhood asked for more such schools to be established. Past pupils commented that learning combined with tea-picking had been hard, but they did not mind because they had a purpose. When I visited the local offices of the Ministry of Education, one official pointed out that he got to where he was through one of these schools. A clerk on the estate pointed out that he had been through the school, which resulted in his current relatively well-paid employment. Now he could afford to send his younger sister to a mission boarding school – he explained that she does not have to suffer as he did.
School pupils picking tea on the estate
Work was paid on a piece-work basis; children were paid the same rates as adults and received subsidised schooling as well, so it was not cheap labour for the company. Management regarded the school as a service to the community. One top manager commented that in an ideal world, such schools should not exist, but in the situation that many families find themselves in the schools serve a useful purpose.
All the children I spoke to had chosen to be there. Some from far away had to persuade their parents to allow them to attend this school when they heard about it. For most, it was the only chance of secondary schooling available to them: several commented that before they came, they had been sitting at home doing nothing. A few chose to come to this school because they noticed that the teachers were more committed and examination results were better than in the surrounding government schools.
In the end, the campaign to eliminate child labour won out and the company terminated its earn-and-learn scheme in 2013. But this did not improve the situation of children in the local communities. Zimbabwean journalist, Ngoni Shumba, points out, “Nearly two years later, many children in Chipinge are now looking for any means of survival… Some children working as vendors in the city even suggest the tea estates were a better evil, in that gaining access to education at least gave them hope for a way out of poverty.”
Buyers of Zimbabwean tea can feel comfortable that no children were employed in picking the tea they drink. But children like Witness have lost an option to improve their lives.
Policy Challenges
Refusing to buy the product of children’s work simply because they are below an internationally designated minimum age for employment does nothing to ease their situation and offers no new opportunities.
Policy Recommendations
To improve children’s lives, we need to find new and better opportunities for them, not simply take away their chosen path for self-improvement.
Sources
This example was written by Michael Bourdillon. Publications on the subject can be found here and here.