Orphans’ Motivation for Higher Education

The purpose of this study was to find the level of orphans’ motivation for higher education and factors contributing their motivation for higher education. Since Kandahar is one of the historically and strategically important provinces of Afghanistan in which four-decade war have adversely affected different aspects of lives of its population. Orphan and education seem two contradictory terms in a country like Afghanistan with four-decade war history. The study is descriptive in nature where a quantitative questionnaire was designed to collect data from randomly selected 112 students studying in 10, 11 and 12 of Shaikh Zaid orphanage and from 15 graduates through snowball sampling method. The findings revealed that orphans are motivated for higher education transportation, financial problem, daydreaming, distraction during study are the major challenges that prevent orphans from getting higher education.


Introduction
Orphans are making 143 to 210 million of world's population and Afghanistan is one of those countries which has a large population of orphans in the world (Kavak, 2014). UNICEF and global partners define an orphan as a child under 18 years of age who has lost one or both parents to any cause of death. According to the report of Aljazeera (2017) in Afghanistan, an orphan is defined as a child without a father and by this grouping, there are an estimated quarter of a million orphans in the country. By the term orphan, we also mean a child who doesn't have a father to fulfill his/her needs in life.
The report conducted by Shafaqna website in 2013 which interviewed child foundation head of Balk province states that few Afghan orphans live either in orphanages or have the support of other assistance institutions and in total only 12464 of the children are living in orphanages and they get education. The source further adds that based on the roles of these orphanages orphans are allowed to stay there only till the age of 18. By then, they have to leave the orphanage and make a life on their own.
Due to four decades of war many aspects of lives of the Afghans' are adversely affected. The consequences of war can be also found in orphans' motivation for higher education. Although it is stated in article 43 rd of Afghanistan's constitution that education is one of the fundamental rights of each Afghan and the government has the responsibility to provide them educational opportunities for free. Moreover, the 28th article of the Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC) make the member states of the CRC responsible to provide equal educational opportunities to every child. Unfortunately, there are still many children including orphans who do not have access to education. A research conducted by Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission has found out that though both governmental and non-governmental organizations have tried to protect abandoned children or orphans in Afghanistan but still thousands of abandoned children and orphans need support and protection (Pazhman, Saramad, and Hasrat, 2013).
Based on the report of (Azadi radio 1392) which have interviewed deputy minister of Labor and Social Affairs and they have reported that there are still 3.5 million abandoned or orphans who are at risk and are deprived of their right to education. In addition to that, on the researcher personal communication on December 23, 2018 with the officials of Shekh Zaid orphanage. they said that due to different reasons some of their orphans leave attending school in secondary levels still most of their graduate students (approximately 80-85% of them) find their way in getting higher education through passing the Kankor (higher education entrance exam). They have also said that some of these orphans refer back to the orphanage due to some obstacles preventing them from higher educations which in result they leave pursuing higher education and those orphans university graduated to be assist and helped in finding jobs.
Previous studies related to orphans have focused more on educational challenges toward orphans, the psychological effect, causes of being HIV/AIDS, their age and their target grade at school, their basic needs in addition to school fees, educational experiences by orphans, orphans intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence. There is still a gap to find out orphans' motivation in the context of higher education. The findings of this study will pave data for those relevant organization who are looking for the challenges that prevent orphans from getting higher education. It will also contribute in developing a peaceful neighborhood. As reported by IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation (2014) children in Afghanistan face the threat of kidnapping, forced to child laboring, and being recruited as child soldiers. Moreover, it's also possible that orphans may get into crimes such as robbery, burglary, and even worst then these they may join with terroristic groups. The purpose of this study was to find level of orphans' motivation for higher education and factors contributing their motivation for higher education.

Research Objective
 To find out orphans' level of motivation for higher education and factors preventing orphans from getting higher education.

Research Question
 What is the level of orphans' motivation for higher education? and which factors preventing orphans from getting higher education?

Review of the Literature
Literature review contains previews studies regarding orphans' motivation for education and the challenges that orphans face in getting education. Alive, Nausheen, Kanwal and Anwar 2017) have examined the learning experience of a group of children living in the orphanage. Their findings revealed that the social and personal circumstances of orphans' shape orphans' believe and value about learning. Their findings further revealed that orphans' unmet need influences orphans' desire to learning. Since some of the orphans aimed to learn in order to earn money or make a family. Moreover, their study introduces three major factors influencing orphans learning. First, teachers. By observing their teachers in the orphanage classes the researchers found that the teachers were attending classes without effective strategies and remained disinterested in their wellbeing and learning in education. Next, overcrowded classes and classrooms with fewer facilities such as lack of furniture, discipline, calamity or quietness worsened the situation for learning. Third, barriers to orphans' educations that the syllabus was in a foreign language and orphans were lacking in several skills. At the end, they found that children also faced some other problems such as healthcare, behavioral issue, and psychological problems. Abdussalam (2017) have compared orphans and non-orphans' social competence and quality of life and he found that there is no difference among orphans and non-orphans in the level of their social life. Though, a significant difference between the life of orphans and non-orphans was found that orphans' quality of life was in the lower level in compare to non-orphans and therefore suggested a stimulating environment and better sources be provided for orphans. Shann, Bryant, Brooks, Bukuluki, Muhangi, Lugalla, and Kwesigabo (2013) investigated the effectiveness of educational support for orphan vulnerable children and they have found that providing support to orphan vulnerable children was not only important but also effective. Their findings further revealed that in some cases supported children performed better than non-supported orphan vulnerable children peers. Furthermore, the study found that access to secondary education for those orphan vulnerable children who did not have financial means to attend school could be increased by providing a scholarship. The study also found some effective factors affecting the educational outcomes of orphan vulnerable children such as: paying school fees, nutritional status, psychological wellbeing, and physical safety.
Kimbi and Mugambi (2017) studied factors influencing orphans' and vulnerable children's performance. They have found that management competence influenced the peer performance of orphan vulnerable children. At the same time, their study further showed that resource availability, community involvement, monitoring, and evaluation were the factors which have influenced orphans peer performance and their study recommended the increase of financial allocation, giving report about evaluation and monitoring, use of information technology for improving orphan vulnerable children's performance, training of management team on leadership style and sensitizing of community.
Other researchers have conducted several studies regarding some challenges that orphans face on their way to higher education. Kazeem and Jessen (2017) in Nigeria investigating orphans' school attendance and their relationship to household head found that those paternal and maternal or doubled orphans who have close biological ties with their household heads have taken more educational advantages comparing to those who were less biologically tied to their household head. Their research suggests programs such a cash transfer, child sponsorship, and food adoration to be implemented for household heads and school stakeholders to make the household head allow orphans, particularly those with distant ties to their household heads to go to school.
Smiley, Omoeva, Sylla, and Challuda (n.d) studied Orphans and Venerable Children's trends in school access and experience in eastern and South Africa. Their findings revealed that poverty in general and lack of adult car were closely tied to educational challenges in compare to orphanhood. Their study further revealed that strict school environment had negative effects on the healthy development of children especially those who did not have strong caregivers. Dalen, Nekitend, and Musisi (2009) studied the situation of double orphans heading household through interviews, focus group discussion, observation, and narratives. Their findings showed that lack of food, clothes, and some other material resources, the limited possibilities of regular school attendance, vast responsibilities and fewer possibilities of social interaction all were the factors in rising worries and challenges for an orphan as a head of household or family. However, Mayo, Susa, Gudyanga (2015) conducted a study on how the institutionalization of orphan children impacts orphan children outcome. They have found that the institutionalized orphans faced lack of parents and lack of sources as a factor that demotivated them.
On the other hand, Sinha, Lombe, Saltzaman, Whetten, Whhetten and Positive Outcome for Orphans'Research Team (2016) explored factors associated with the educational outcome of orphans abandoned. Their findings showed that more than half of orphan vulnerable children were below their target grade level. Moreover, girls and boys were both equally treated and both were at risk. The result also showed that those children who did not have a close biological relationship with their caregiver were doing paid work and were the head of the family. Therefore, they were not in the grades accommodating with their age. Their study further suggests that some actions such as: improving school and infrastructure, quality of teachers within school cheek ups, made meals, bringing school support in respect programs for caregivers can be taken to fulfill some of the educational needs for orphan vulnerable children.
Pillay (2018) studied orphan vulnerable children early education for improving outcomes for governance and economic development of Africa, showed that by providing educational facilities in early childhood for orphan vulnerable children can possibly cause to develop skills and human capital in orphan vulnerable children as future adults. Ong, Yuot, Chhon, Shibnuma, Yasuoka, and Jimba (2015) explored factors associated with depressive symptoms among orphans and vulnerable children and found that depressive symptoms among both boys and girls were affected similarly by different factors. Their findings showed physical health as utmost importance for individuals surviving, so their study suggested more healthcare be available for orphan vulnerable children. Furthermore, the result indicated that school can be another factor which can act against depression so more efforts should be done for improving school role in removing depression and teachers should be trained to recognize orphans having depressive symptoms and pay more attention to orphan vulnerable children (OVCs).
Irshad (2017) have done a comparative study of stress and alienation among Orphans and normal, the study found that alienation and stress were related to each other. It means that whenever someone goes under pressure or gets into stressful conditions than that person automatically gets alienated and vice versa. In addition to that, the study further revealed through the T-test result that orphans were more alienated and stressed in compare to normal students. In his study, he recommends that orphans' should be provided mental health, services including bereavement and grief counseling, traditional services and psychological supports. He also recommends that caregivers, teachers, public head workers, and community leaders should be trained in a way that they can provide psychological support to orphans. Oyedele, Chiuwature, and Manayage (2016) investigated the challenges that orphans face at O-level and the effect of those challenges on their academic performance. They have found through students' performance in school that teachers did not have any special scheme for identifying and providing academic financial support to orphan students in their class. Based on the interview with heads of school their study found that the education stakeholders and government have done little works for removing challenges that orphans faced and fostering orphan's academic performance at the secondary level. They have recommended that teachers should identify orphans in their class and provide them the necessary supports especially psychological supports related to their parental death. Furthermore, in order to decrease discrimination among students, the study suggests that teachers should educate non-orphan students about the challenges that orphans face.
To conclude all the available literature stated above, summarize orphans' educational outcomes are related to issues; such as, poverty, lack of adult care, being the head of household, lack of appropriate educational scheme by teachers, less biological relation with their household heads, high stress and alienation, nutritional problems at home and orphanages, lack of treatment for their interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences and lack of some other essential cares at school.

Methodology
The study is descriptive in nature where a quantitative questionnaire was adapted from Deo-Mohan Achievement Motivation Scale (Deo and Mohan, n.d) and from literature review to collect data from randomly selected 112 students studying in 10 th , 11 th and 12 th of Shaikh Zaid orphanage at Kandahar city and from 15 graduate through snowball sampling method. Since it is the one the famous orphanage of Afghanistan which have orphan students at high school level and the other orphanage contains students at primary level. And the current study was best fitted to find population which are either graduated from high schools or currently engaged since they were about to graduate from high school and go to university for higher education. The instrument consists of three parts; demographic information, part two containing question-related to measuring orphans' motivation for higher education and questions related to identifying challenges that limit orphans' engagement in higher education. The collected data was analyzed with the use of SPSS 24 version and Frequency and percentages are presented in the table.   Table 2. shows the frequency and the percentage of participants' responses with the Likert scale from 1. strongly disagree, 2. disagree, 3. undecided, 4. agree to 5. strongly agree for each item. Findings of table 1.2 show respondents' responses regarding their motivation for higher education. For the 1 st item shows that 80.3% of respondents strongly agreed, 15.7% of agreed, 2.4% were undecided, and only 1.6% of respondents disagreed that attending university makes plenty of opportunities in life. For the 2 nd item 41.7% of respondents strongly agreed, 30.7% agreed, 10.2% were undecided and in total 17.3% either disagreed or strongly disagreed to acquire higher education rather than getting married and making a family. For the 3 rd item 57.5% of respondents strongly agreed, 33.1% agreed, 7.1% were undecided and in total 2.4% agreed and disagreed to continue their mission or educational lofe in spite of facing many problems in their life.

Findings
For the 4 th item 68.5% of respondents strongly agreed, 26.0% agreed, 2.4% of were undecided, 0.8% = disagreed and 2.4% strongly disagreed that life is an intellectual problem and they ought to suffer problems and attend university. For the 5 th item 57.5% of respondents strongly agreed, 25.2 % agreed, 3.9% were undecided, 7.1% disagreed and 6.3% strongly disagreed that they have their favorite faculties through the inspiration of their friends.
Furthermore, for the 6 th item 54.3% of respondents strongly agreed, 30.7% of agreed 6.3% were undecided and in total 8.6% disagreed and strongly disagreed that they will benefit in the university from their hard-working habit that they work hard with the people who work in their favorite field. For the 7 th item 78.7% of respondents strongly agreed, 15.0% of agreed, 2.4% were undecided, 1.6% disagreed and 2.4% strongly disagreed that they plan and study all the year to obtain good marks in all subjects since marks are a key role for getting higher education's scholarships. For the 8 th item 64.6% of respondents strongly agreed, 29.9% of agreed, 2.4% were undecided that they set standards and try hard to achieve them and this will affect their performance at university however in total 3.2% either disagreed or strongly disagreed to this item. For the 9 th item 66.1% of respondents strongly agreed, 26.8% of agreed, while 3.9% were undecided, 0.8% disagreed, and 2.4% strongly disagreed to be interested in developing some of their skills: self-working, group working, class participation since they are necessary for university students. For the 10 th item 37.8% of respondents strongly agreed, 26.0% agreed, 17.3% of were undecided, 9.4% disagreed and 9.4% strongly disagreed that staying late for some lecturers to finish their lecture irritates them and it's a concern for them which can affect their performance at university and causes them to show less interest toward university and it showed that for this item in total 63.8% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed. For the 11 th item 56.7% of respondents strongly agreed, 30.7% agreed, 5.5% were undecided, 4.7% disagreed and 2.4% of respondents strongly disagreed that they mind much for getting late to the class and it can affect their performance at university. Finally, for the 12 th item 51.2% strongly agreed, 29.9% agreed, 3.9% were undecided, 8.7% disagreed and 6.3% of strongly agreed that getting low marks can make them disappointed and it can effect on their performances at university.  Table 3. indicates factors preventing orphans from getting higher education by the participants responses through selecting linker scale from 1. strongly disagree, 2. disagree, 3. undecided, 4. agree, to 5. strongly agree for each item. The result indicates respondents' responses regarding some challenges on their way to attend university and show that several challenges are negatively affecting orphans' motivation for higher education. The finding for the 1 st item shows that 54.3% of respondents strongly disagreed, 21.3% disagreed about their family telling them not to worry about life and not to bother for education and future life while 4.7% of were undecided, 7.9% agreed and 11.8% strongly agreed. For the 2 nd item, 40.9% of respondents strongly disagreed, 29.1% disagreed, 6.3% were undecided, 10.2% agreed and 13.4% strongly agreed that they experienced their friends considering them dull and 8. Since in the society I see unemployed people and the unemployed graduated students of university so I think I will also be unemployed after I'm graduated from university. shirker and they worry that they may suffer it during higher education as well. For the 3 rd item, 49.6% of respondents strongly disagreed, 26.8% disagreed, 8.7% were undecided and in total 14.9% agreed or strongly agreed about school as a demotivating factor for their motivation of higher education. For the 4th item 22.0% of respondents strongly agreed, 31.5% agreed that during the lesson they daydream about their daily problems and it's a concern which all works as distractions for their studies and they think it will have negative effects on their performance at the university however in this regard 11% of respondents were undecided, and in total 35.4% of either disagreed or strongly disagreed. For the 5 th item, 39.4% of respondents strongly disagreed, 28.3% disagreed, 6.3% were undecided, 11% agreed and 15% strongly agreed to prefer caring for their family rather than attending university. For the 6 th item, the challenge of not having the courage to speak in front of others which may negatively affect their university performance 24.4% of respondents strongly agreed, 24.4% agreed while 8.7% were undecided, 13.4% disagreed and 29.1% of strongly disagreed. For the 7 th item, 31.5% of respondents strongly disagreed, 26.0% of disagreed, 7.1% were undecided, 25.2% agreed and 10.2 % strongly agreed about the university lessons to be hard and time consuming for them since they lack the capacity and time. For the 8 th item, 37.8% of respondents strongly disagreed, 24.4% disagreed, 6.3% were undecided, 15.7% agreed and 15.7% strongly agreed to be less motivated toward higher education due to seeing university graduate students unemployed in the society. For the 9 th item, 52.0% of respondents strongly disagreed, 29.1% disagreed, 5.5% were undecided, 3.9% of respondents agreed and 9.4% strongly agreed to be less demotivated for higher education due to the inappropriate behavior of university graduate students toward them.
For the 10 th item, 23.6 % of respondents strongly agreed, 29.9% agreed that transportation can be a serious problem for them and may cause them not to attend the university regularly because they are living far away from the university while in this regard 11.8% were undecided, 22% disagreed and 12.6% strongly disagreed. For the 11 th item, 43.3% of respondents strongly disagreed, 33.1% disagreed, 4.7% of were undecided, and in total 18.9% of respondents agreed and strongly agreed to be less motivated to higher education for not starting school in the early age of life. For the 12th item, 26.0% of respondents strongly agreed, 26.8% agreed that doing paid work can cause them not to regularly attend the university however 8.7% were undecided, 18.9% disagreed and 19.7% strongly disagreed. For the 13 th item, 22.8% of respondents strongly disagreed, 26.8% disagreed, 12.6% were undecided while 22.0% agreed and 15.7% strongly agreed to be demotivated toward higher education because of thinking that they may not be able to follow any Kankoor preparation course. For the 15 th item, 31.5% of respondents strongly disagreed, 15.0% disagreed, however, 11.8% of were undecided, 22.0% agreed and 19.7% strongly agreed about the university to be an unsecured place which can make them less interested toward higher education. For the item (14 th ) 23.6% of respondents strongly agreed, 29.1% agreed that they may not be able to pay the fees of university if they work first and attend the university in night shifts in some non-governmental universities although 16.5% of respondents were undecided, 15.7% disagreed and 15% of strongly disagreed.

Discussion
The findings show that orphans are motivated for acquiring higher education as 80.3% orphans strongly agreed and 15.7% orphans agreed that they want to acquire higher education because it brings plenty of opportunities to life and makes life more enjoyable. The study also found that orphans agreed that acquiring higher education is better than getting married since 41.7% of respondents strongly agreed and 30.7% of respondents agreed. The study shows that orphans were inspired by their friends who were going to university and they had their favorite faculty since 57.5 % of respondents strongly agreed and 25.2 % of respondents agreed in this regard. The last evidence is that they want to carry their mission in spite of facing many problems and 57.5% of respondents strongly agreed and 33.1% of respondents agreed in this regard. Moreover, the findings of this study also point out some factors which are causing orphans' to be less motivated to acquire higher education. And those factors are lack of transportation as 23.6 % of respondents strongly agreed and 29.9% of respondents agreed for lack of transportation as a challenge, daydreaming during the study about their daily problems as 22.0% of respondents strongly agreed and 31.5% of respondents agreed that during the lesson their daydreams about their problem which distract their attention from the study, lack of courage to speak in front of people 24.4% of respondents strongly agreed and 24.4% of respondents agreed to this challenge , doing paid work which can cause them not be able to attend university regularly 26.0% of respondents strongly agreed and 26.8% of respondents agreed and as the challenge of their inability to be able to pay the fees for night shift university stops them from attending university in night shift and 23.6% of respondents strongly agreed and 29.1% of respondents agreed to this. The finding of this study supports the finding of Sinha, et al. (2017) that orphans do pay work and it is a challenge in their educational life and can affect their educational performance. The finding of this study is also in correspondence with Alive, Nausheen, Kanwal, and Anwar (2017) that orphans' unmet needs influence orphans' desire to learning. In final, the finding of the present study agrees to the finding of Shann at.al (2013) that those orphans who did not have financial means to get the education their interest to learning can be increased by providing a scholarship to them.

Suggestions and Conclusion
Result shows orphans are motivated for higher education but still lack of transportation, orphans' daydreaming about the problems they have act as barriers for their studying lack of courage to speak in front of people, doing paid work, unable to pay the fees for night shift university which can cause them unable to attend university regularly are some challenges that orphans face in the class and are possible threats to affect orphans' motivation during university lessons too. It is the responsibility of every individual in society, orphans' caregivers and orphanage keepers and any organization working closely with orphans to invest based on their effort for making it possible the desired dreams of Orphans in getting higher education through working on the solutions of those factor which this study found as challenges that prevent them from getting higher education. In addition, for more enhancement of orphans' motivation for higher education and removing the present challenges of orphans' higher education, the researchers recommend university officials to provide orphans with transportation facilities so that orphans from remote areas can also attend the university, provide orphans with part-time job having good payments so that they can come over their family expenses and take care of orphans daily and economic problems so that their daily and economic problems are not going to distract them during the lesson and their mind does not wander off and they do not get into imaginations about their life problems anymore.