An essential assessment of destitution as a barrier to learning in Limpopo Elementary Schools

Abstract

Although, hundreds of studies have documented the relationship between family poverty and children’s health, and achievement and behaviour, few measure the effects of the timing, depth, and duration of poverty on children. Many studies fail to adjust for family characteristics, for example, mother’s age and schooling, that may account for many of these observed correlations between poverty and child outcomes in the Sekhukhune District in Limpopo Province. This study sought to examine a recent set of studies that explore the relationship between poverty and child outcomes in depth. Largely, this research supports the conclusion that family income has selective, but in some instances quite substantial, effects on the child and their well-being. Family income appears to be more strongly related to children’s ability and achievement than to their emotional outcomes. Children who live in outrageous destitution or beneath the poverty line for a long time, suffer the worst.