An exploration of the role of education in rural-to-urban migration in Africa
Apedaile, L.P.
Eastern African Journal of Rural Development 12(1/2): 66-84
1979
Document Number: 519448
Migration is defined as the movement of peoples from a rural occupation and habitat to an urban occupation and habitat, without special regard to national boundaries. Migration is shown to be part of a process of resource allocation. The resources in this case are specific combinations of skills, attitudes, and knowledge embodied in mobile human beings. The purpose of the paper is to review and add some order to the impacts of education on rural-to-urban migration. The consensus of standard forces and phenomena which favour rural-to-urban migration are first adopted. The assumptions about education implicit in each of these phenomena are then relaxed. It is concluded that curiculum content, investment in rural education infrastructure and care in moulding perceptions and confidence of rural people about their future economic well-being can modify conventional truths about migration. It appears that migration rates and selectivity may be more susceptable to changeunder some education policies than under others. The studies of education and migration reviewed are implicitly restricted to conventional European type education. Having established that such education enhances the propensity of rural people to migrate, it is concluded that a form of self-reliaint education has some potential to reduce the need to migrate and to reduce the selectivity of migration to the combined advantage of both rural and urban areas. The benefits would lie in reduced stress on urban security and dignity, greater productivity from rural development spending and a better likelihood of security of food supply, other things being equal.