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Carmen Colazo: Comments to the text ICAE Confintea VI Seminar [18]
Some comments on MIGRATION and ADULT LEARNING
Vilma Mc Clenan
Many Thanks to all the contributors for their
interesting and insightful articles! I really enjoyed reading them
and trying to see how they related to our context.
My reflections are mainly related to Jamaica
but also apply to the Caribbean, and share some of the effects of
migration on the migrants and those they leave behind.
1. Firstly, in the Caribbean, we come from a
history of what must surely be an outrageous example of ‘forced or
involuntary migration’ wherein our ancestors were taken mainly from
West Africa across the Atlantic to the Americas and forced to live
and labour as slaves, with no opportunity for any form of education.
But on their own, they learned many things, including (as part of
their survival strategies) how to communicate with each other,
although from differing tribes -- perhaps the beginnings of literacy
education in the Caribbean?? But, this very situation has for
centuries hampered the efforts of successive governments and NGO
groups, because the slaves and their descendants never learned the
“mother tongue” properly but incorporated their own language
creating various dialects (e.g. Jamaican Creole, French patois
spoken in St Lucia and Papiamento spoken in Curacao) such that
even today, literacy programmes have to grapple with the various
dialects of people who are the descendants of those involuntary
migrants.
Many present-day migrants from the Caribbean
who use mostly dialect are often found to be operating at a low
literacy level where for example Standard English is used for
measuring their literacy levels, and so, they are often unable to
access education and training in their receiving country where
Standard English is used.
But, one ‘positive spin-off’ from the Abolition
of Slavery was that, in the post-Emancipation period, the right to
learn of these ex-slaves was recognized when various groups,
especially churches, set about providing educational opportunities,
building Trust Schools (many of which still exist today!!) as a
means of transforming the lives of the ex-slaves, and forging, as
Michael Welton purports, the beginnings of Learning Societies
within Caribbean countries.
2. Babacar Diopp writes of some reasons for
migration and in the Caribbean it has mainly been for socio-economic
reasons. Caribbean people have always migrated, to developed
countries especially England, the USA and more recently Canada They
migrate to get better jobs, to earn more money and to seek “a better
quality of life” for themselves and family. But, in our Caribbean
context, migration has been a source of progress but has also caused
regression, as Babacar mentions. Early on, migrants were mostly men
who went to join the British army, who worked on farms, built roads,
built cities and built the Panama Canal. They acquired some money
and the trappings of wealth but little if any education; little
‘book learning’. Progress and regression!! In Jamaica there are even
songs which mention some of these temporary migrants, men who
returned from Panama, grown old from hard work, but well dressed
‘like high society gentlemen’, each in his three-piece suit and tie,
wearing a large gold chain with a gold pocket watch -- which he
could not read. They could neither read nor write. No one encouraged
them to try while they worked. They had just laboured in the host
country in which there exists so many education opportunities, and
they returned still illiterate!
3. Maria Fernanda’s groupings of migrants is
very familiar and could be applied to Caribbean migrants.
(a) In one group are women who as Madam Shaheen
mentions migrate leaving behind their families. The Caribbean knows
that situation all too well! Many women, especially those with a low
literacy level and minimal education, fall into this category of
‘vulnerable migrants’. They have migrated to give service as
household helpers and hotel maids; as care-givers to other’s
children and even as ‘sex workers’ in countries with a good,
thriving tourist industry. They work hard for minimum wage (but
which is more than they would have earned in their home country)
modern day slavery?? Working sometimes at two or three jobs often
leaves them no time for their own further education and development,
although ample opportunity exits in the host country. Their
migration has created a situation in our Caribbean countries of what
we refer to as “barrel children” children whose migrant mothers (especially)
regularly send home a barrel filled with food, appliances and name-brand
clothing. They send almost all of their earnings back home for their
children as monthly ‘remittances’ (mentioned by Hinzen and Duke) a
very familiar term in Jamaica!! The result is that these “barrel
children” see no reason to work hard at their own education because
all that they need “will soon come in a barrel from overseas”. These
children often fail in school, drop out of formal education and
even turn to criminal activities.
Who has rally gained from the migration?? Whose quality of life has been improved?
(b) Those who migrate to seek work as
hairdressers, nurses, and teachers fall in the middle income group
and will often maintain ‘decent standards of living’; become
reasonably well integrated into the receiving country and the
females, especially, might consciously decide to access further
education and training to upgrade their skills and increase their
earning power.
(c) Maria Fernanda also identifies a third
group, the doctors, lawyers, IT specialists etc, and people with
university degrees whose migration causes the “brain drain” of which
Portes writes and who contribute to the economic development of
their host country in very significant ways. In the Caribbean, in
the past these were mostly men, more recently single women. In their
host country both are very likely to seek further education and
training for upward job mobility. Their continuing education is
often related to prior higher socio-economic status and prior
patterns of education to which they had been exposed before they
migrated. Because of their level of education, they often get into
good economic situations and become well integrated into their host
country. Many become citizens of this new country, marry nationals
of their host country, bring about the migration of their own
family members to live in the suburbs and contribute to the host
country’s development. However, because of other differences, such
as acceptance of prior qualifications, sometimes members of this
group find that they have to accept ‘menial’ jobs way below their
level of qualifications, e.g, at a prestigious money-lending
institution in Washington D.C in the USA, I met a well educated
Caribbean man, a former Vice-Principal of a school who had a
Bachelor of Arts Degree and who was then employed as the senior door
man, opening and closing the door for me and others to pass in and
out of the building. I learned from him that he had decided to
return to studies to get the USA qualifications that would allow him
to teach there. So, should we lobby more for prior legitimate
qualifications gained in developing countries to be more universally
accredited and accepted in this present globalized world?
4. Of importance also is how migration helps to
transmit/influence culture and to educate the people of the host
country. Because migrants are away from their mother-country, they
tend to associate at churches, community centres and for other
social events. Together, they celebrate the festivals of their
homeland and in so doing transmit songs, dances etc not only to
their own children but also to those from their host country. For
example, calypso and
reggae music and Caribbean Carnivals are now
an integral part of life in such places as New York in the USA,
Toronto in Canada and Brixton in the UK.
And that ‘reverse integration’ has both
educated the natives have enriched those host countries!
5. Finally, in all of our countries there is
the situation of migration of youth mostly from rural areas to urban
centres, desperately seeking to overcome poverty and access better
quality of life away from farming and manual labour. But as they
have dropped out of formal education from as early as 12 years old,
they are essentially uneducated, unskilled and unemployable.
What happens to these very marginalized males?
Often street vagrancy, drug peddling and male prostitution. So,
adult education has an important role to play in the lives of such
young adults to get them to recognize the value of
continuing their education.
Kind regards.
Carmen Colazo: Comments to the text ICAE Confintea VI Seminar [18]
Dear exchange partners: What Marcela states
here is very important. In general, we only take into account the
situation of women or men that leave their homes and travel to the
cities or to other countries. But we have not researched
enough about the impacts of these migrations in other family members
that stay. In Paraguay, it is visible the overload of work and care
of grandchildren that grandmothers have taken, and also daughters (especially
the older ones) that take charge of manifold tasks that before were
done by migrant mothers and fathers. These family responsibilities
affect formal education and life opportunities for many women and
girls in the rural sector and the capital outskirts. Quite a few
young people follow their mothers to other destinations. In all the
cases we are viewing, it shows the need of coordinated policies
among states to fight against poverty, marginalization, social
disaffiliation (according to Robert Castel), trade, traffic and,
most of all, the gender inequality. Fight against these problems is
not being properly funded or priorized in the government policies.
A hug for all. Carmen Colazo |