Exploring the Classroom Realities of Poverty-Related Mental Health Challenges

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A learner falling asleep in class is often read as disengagement. In some classrooms, it can also be the visible edge of something far less visible: hunger, anxiety and the mental strain of poverty.

For cum laude graduate, Ms Namhla Ngcefa, this is where teaching begins - not with content delivery, but with context. Her deeply personal master’s dissertation ‘Exploring Five Teachers’ Experiences of Learners from a Community Afflicted by Poverty-Related Mental Health Challenges’, supervised by Dr Claire Gaillard, examines the experiences of five teachers working with learners from communities affected by poverty-related mental health challenges.

Growing up in a poverty-induced environment, Ngcefa witnessed how survival often competed with schooling.

“Coming out of that environment into academia, I was intrigued by the resilience of learners from such communities. But more than anything, I wanted to explore how poverty, mental health and education are interconnected,” Ngcefa said.

Her research centres teachers precisely because, as she puts it, “teachers spend half of the day in the classroom with learners” and are often the first to observe how social and emotional realities play out in academic spaces.

“They are the most viable subjects who analyse learners socially, emotionally, and academically. Sometimes learners’ behaviours are products of their circumstances,” she explained.

What teachers describe is a classroom shaped as much by absence as by presence - absence of food, stability and psychosocial support. Some speak of learners who are restless, exhausted and sleepy in class, unable to concentrate because basic needs remain unmet.

Others describe more complex moral and emotional situations that resist easy judgment.

One account stayed with Ngcefa: a learner who stole a cellphone and sold it to buy food for their family.

“That learner got into trouble with peers and the school until some learners explained the financial situation at home,” she recalled.

“It was very difficult and emotional to hear, because people do not realise how difficult some people have it in life.”

For teachers in her study, these realities create a constant ethical tension. They are expected to manage learning, behaviour, and emotional well-being, often without adequate support.

Teachers describe the work as emotionally taxing and sad, with some admitting that they sometimes have to put their own issues aside to cope with what they encounter daily in the classroom. Others speak of disciplinary breakdowns, including learners leaving class to use drugs or showing overt disrespect, leaving teachers feeling “non-existent or not an adult” in the room.

In some cases, this leads to withdrawal.

Ngcefa said: “Teachers deliver content and leave the classroom. Burnout and emotional fatigue affect not only struggling learners, but entire classrooms”.

Yet her findings are not defined only by strain.

One of the strongest threads in the research is the presence of informal community support. Teachers describe communities that come together to support both teachers and learners, including weekly feeding schemes and collective efforts to provide uniforms where schools lack resources.

“There is unity between the community and the school. The community comes together to support learners and that makes teachers feel seen as part of the community raising the learners,” she shared.

According to Ngcefa, it is clear that these acts of care exist alongside systemic gaps. Overcrowded classrooms, limited psychosocial support, and unclear disciplinary structures, place teachers under sustained pressure and at risk of burnout.

She hopes the study shifts how both policymakers and schools understand teaching in contexts of poverty. She also hopes teachers are recognised for the humanising role they bring to the classroom, reminding us that teaching goes beyond imparting knowledge - it includes protecting learners’ emotional wellbeing, dignity, and hope.

Ngcefa said, “There is so much resilience and strength in people from township communities. If there were more support for teachers and learners, more learners would be able to strive for better opportunities in their lives.”

Her study offers valuable insights into what needs to change in township schooling contexts, why stronger support systems are necessary, and how better collaboration between schools, communities and education structures could help improve outcomes for both teachers and learners.

Words: Rakshika Sibran

Photograph: Sethu Dlamini