Maseru, Lesotho – It’s a bright, cloudless day in Maseru and within the confines of a small green-and-white-fenced compound, about a dozen children in yellow school uniforms – many of them toddlers – run around.

A middle-aged woman saunters through the school’s gate. All of a sudden, the children stop playing and rush forward, swarming her like a bike of bees. She complains good-naturedly that she is tired but this doesn’t stop her from hugging the little ones. It’s almost like she is their mother.

Her name is Mathapelo Phalatse. Officially, she is a teacher at the Child Guidance Center (CGC), a small school in Qoaling, a community in the capital of Lesotho.

But in reality, Phalatse is more than that. In addition to teaching the children, she cares for them physically, emotionally and makes sure they have what they need.

CGC is one of several boarding schools – some formal, others informal – that have sprung up across the landlocked kingdom encircled by South Africa in recent years. But unlike traditional boarding schools for older children, these admit toddlers and preschoolers and provide a more affordable choice for working-class parents who feel like they have few options.

Although it is difficult to track the number of boarding schools for toddlers that exist – a request Al Jazeera sent to the Ministry of Education went unanswered – the phenomenon is spreading in Lesotho, according to local media.

“These schools [are] … particularly helping parents eager to seek employment in foreign lands but cannot take their children along,” said an April report published in the Lesotho Times.

“We take in children from an age range of two years to 12 years,” Phalatse told Al Jazeera. CGC’s fees are 2,500 South African rand ($144) a month, which pays for classes, lodging, food and general care.

Lesotho has a 16.5 percent unemployment rate. Although this is lower than its bigger neighbour, a government policy document said that between 2018 and 2023 only 10 percent of Lesotho’s population of 2.3 million was employed in the formal sector and that the country is “among the 10 most unequal countries in the world”.

Being entirely surrounded by South Africa, Lesotho’s economy is also largely dependent on its neighbour, through which it receives all imports. It is also one of the most migration-dependent countries in the world, a report prepared for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) noted.

Many people from Lesotho – particularly lower-skilled and informal sector workers, including supermarket cashiers, domestic helpers and factory workers – migrate to South Africa in search of economic opportunities and leave their children behind, NGOs note.

According to Integral Human Development, “43% of the households in Lesotho have at least one of its members living away from home.”

While the IOM says there isn’t much reliable migration data for Lesotho, according to 2022 data from the World Bank, remittances contribute about 23 percent to the country’s GDP.

A ‘safe’ place

“In general, people leave Lesotho and their children to look for better jobs in South Africa,” said Thapelo Khasela, the general manager at Action Lesotho, an anti-poverty NGO that has worked to support orphans and other vulnerable people.

In most cases, the parents who leave are lower-skilled workers who feel there are more opportunities for them in a much larger economy.

“For instance, the same factory worker who earns 2,500 rand ($144) in Lesotho can earn a minimum of 4,000 rand ($231) in South African factories using a piece rate system … It is relatively easy for unskilled labour to get employed in South Africa than it is in Lesotho,” he told Al Jazeera.

Lesotho’s mandated minimum monthly wage is between $120 and $130, which puts boarding schools like CGC out of reach for many. But for parents living in neighbouring countries who can earn a bit of a higher salary, the schools are a better option than leaving their children with nannies or relatives.

“You find that most of the kids here … the parents are not together,” Phalatse told Al Jazeera. In many cases, one parent has full custody and cannot work effectively while living with the child because they have to work far away from home, she said. This situation forces the parent to send the child to boarding school.

At the same time, boarding schools have also become popular with parents staying in the country.

Bongiwe Zihlangu’s nine-year-old is at CGC. “Due to economic reasons, families find themselves migrating. Sometimes, you are a single mother and you are deployed to a different district and you cannot just uproot everything, you have to find a place where your child is safe,” the journalist in Maseru said.

Zihlangu, whose son has been in boarding school since 2019 when he was four years old, doesn’t see any other option.

“While one would think that it’s ideal for a family to be together, circumstances sometimes don’t allow for that and you have to explore other options,” she told Al Jazeera.

“I have been a journalist all my life, so I have worked erratic hours and I have lived with nannies, especially when this young one [her son currently enrolled at CGC] was growing up.”

Now, however, Zihlangu said she is uncomfortable with the idea of nannies. “We have seen how live-in maids, nannies, treat kids. You can never be sure that your child is safe with the nanny.”

Phalatse agreed that many parents enrol their children at CGC because they are sceptical about nannies. “Before bringing children to this school, parents tried nannies as an option, and they were not satisfied,” she said, adding that many were worried about both the safety of their children and the state they would find their houses upon their return.

The costs of care are also a factor. A live-in nanny charges about 1,500 rand ($86) a month, Zihlangu said, plus additional costs for food and upkeep. School fees for the children are then added to that. This makes the boarding school option – which covers everything in one combined fee – more feasible for many.

“Boarding school is an arrangement that works for me … With this kind of boarding school [CGC], the kid gets an education and development in other aspects of their life,” she said.

Mental and emotional effects

The area around CGC, amid the mountainous Lesotho landscape where furry sheep move around just beyond the school’s fence, is pleasant.

Inside the compound, small grey cottages surround a light yellow house with a mural painted on the exterior with the words “learn and grow”.

In the main house, a middle-aged woman – the school’s chef – cooks pap (maize) and split peas, one of the children’s favourites. The kids heap praises on her cooking, talking about their favourite meals and how happy they are on the days the chef makes them.

According to Phalantse, CGC isn’t just about looking after children while their parents are away, it is also about healing.

“In this school, this is where children find counselling,” she told Al Jazeera, saying CGC has counselling services for children trying to deal with family problems such as their parents separating or divorcing.

“Some of the children here, even those that have both parents still living together, are affected when their parents are not on good terms,” Phalatse said. CGC is a “peaceful, calm place” where children can escape from family problems, she feels.

However, adjusting to life away from family is not easy for some children, nor their parents.

Manstali Karabelo Makhetha, who has two preschoolers at CGC, said being separated from her children has an impact on their psychological wellbeing. “They miss home. They miss mummy’s food, they miss their favourite toys,” she said. “They need to be listened to and many more [aspects] that make a child’s world complete.”

Matlheleko Tsatsi, a health and nutrition specialist formerly with Lesotho’s Disaster Authority, where she used to work with children, noted that age zero to five years is a very fragile time in a child’s life.

At that age, a child isn’t supposed to spend a lot of time away from a parent because they need the parent’s love and full attention, she said. As a result, some negative effects of having a child at boarding school at such an early age may include “constant illness” and “being homesick”, Tsatsi added.

“Being away from their parents affects their [toddlers and preschoolers] psychology, leading to PTSD and anxiety due to unbalanced emotions,” she told Al Jazeera.

While Phalatse maintains that they counsel toddlers and preschoolers at CGC, Tsatsi said it was not possible as children at that age are too young to go through mental health processes such as counselling. She added that while she understands the concerns parents have with hiring nannies, there are other ways of ensuring that their children are safe.

“Though those parents [with children at CGC] raise important points, technology has made things easier for them. There are ‘nanny cams’ and digital cameras so that the parents are updated on everything happening at home while they are away,” Tsatsi said.

Asked if it was advisable to put toddlers in boarding school, she was clear: “No, it’s not advisable, that’s a very fragile age.”

Meanwhile, a white paper published by UNICEF in 2024 said, “Boarding schools for younger children under 14 years of age should not be permitted, given the wealth of scientific evidence confirming the damage caused by institutional care for children’s development in early childhood, their personal development, and for their family relationships.”

For parents still in Lesotho, such advice may make a difference. But for those migrating to make a better living for their families, the choice is harder.

Parents leaving their children in Lesotho for better opportunities in South Africa is definitely a “difficulty” that NGOs encounter, said Action Lesotho’s Khasela.

Although he admits that very often “the pastures are not greener on the other side”, he also points to broader systemic issues that make it difficult for working-class parents to make better choices.

“The minimum wage bill in Lesotho is very low, that will need to be reviewed to mitigate this problem [of people migrating without their children],” he said, adding that the government and nonprofits need to offer more help.

“People should be encouraged to start small-scale businesses that will subsidise their income. The government and nongovernmental agencies should work together to improve the entrepreneurial spirit in the communities and make access to funding available for these SMMEs,” he said.

If that happens, “people would not see a need to go to South Africa to look for the same job because it is better paying than back home.”