Factors influencing the migration of teachers from Zimbabwe to South Africa

Abstract

Zimbabwe is suffering from an acute shortage of teachers mainly as a result of teacher emigration to South Africa and abroad. The southern migration of Zimbabwean teachers has received little research attention which has mainly focused on the migration of medical personnel. The purpose of this study is to uncover the factors that drive the migration of teachers from Zimbabwe to South Africa and to explain how these factors function within a grounded theory approach to teacher migration. To achieve this, a review of literature and an empirical study of a small sample of migrant Zimbabwean teachers resident in South Africa were undertaken. A constructivist grounded theory design was used. A theoretical sampling method generated a sample group of thirteen participants who were all qualified Zimbabwean teachers who had migrated to South Africa and been in the country for between one and five years. Data generation and collection consisted of two phases: in the first phase the participants were asked to write a life history narrative or provide a verbal narrative of their life history focussing on their migration. In the second phase they participated in individual interviews to clarify or expand on issues raised in the first phase. Three stages of coding were used in the analysis of the data, namely initial, intermediate and advanced coding. This led to the generation of a grounded theory on teacher migration. The grounded theory indicated that Zimbabwean teachers see migration as the best way to attain an ideal status. An ideal status is conceived to be the ideal interplay between the work conditions, standard of living and social esteem which teachers believe befits members of their profession. Depending on various criteria, teachers fall into one of the following status categories: further diminished status, diminished status, ideal status or ideal status surpassed. Migration is a drastic and demanding way to improve one’s status and it is adopted by teachers only after other strategies to this end have been exhausted. Weighed against existing theories of migration, the grounded theory contributes to understanding teacher migration and retention through the innovative use of the core category status.