Abstract
M.Ed.
This study is an investigation into street children's re-incorporation into the main stream
of formal education. The study looked at how children at New Nation School were
assimilated into the mainstream society after having grown up without any authority
figure or accessible support structures. The theoretical framework was developed around
the educational rights of street children, and the role race, gender, class, homelessness
and poverty play in the child's development. For this qualitative research, six learners were interviewed, though the whole class was considered representative of the population. The researcher used open-ended interviews as well as direct observations to collect data. The findings disclosed that though these street children grew up without any authority figures for a greater part of their lives, they nevertheless exhibited a positive attitude towards a structured life. The efforts of the New Nation School contributed immensely towards the street children abandoning these activities in favour of acquiring healthy activities and positive attitudes towards formal education. The following inferential findings of the study are meaningful. Formal education stands central to increasing the life chances of street children in that it provides them with opportunities to be skilled and sufficiently trained to market themselves competitively in the world of work. Street children remain an integral component of our communities. Their survival and existence is also the responsibility of society and its agencies. It behoves societal members to minimise the risk of losing social security benefits through the inadequate development of society's human capital invested in its children. Street children need to be protected against living the lives of despair, which can lead to their institutionalisation. As such, the larger society has an obligation to support efforts of departmental institutions such as the New Nation School. As South Africans, it is critically clear that condonation of poverty will forever continue to be a formidable scourge, if we leave the street children unattended for, in this way, we shall have invoked the wrath of criminal procreation.