Perceptions of Basic School Teachers and Parents of the Causes and Effects of Child Labour on School Attendance at Selected Surburbs of Sekondi- Takoradi

Abstract

This study was undertaken to ascertain the relationship between Teachers and parents’ perception of child labour and their commitment to educating their children. The communities used for the study were Nkontompo, Sofokrom, Essipong, Assorkor Essaman Yabiw and Kojokrom. The target population consisted of all Teachers of the selected schools and parents whose wards were in the schools. The accessible population was made up of Teachers teaching at the Primary and JHS excluding the teachers at the KG levels. The Snowball sampling technique was used to select sixty (60) parents whiles the purposive technique was used to select sixty (60) teachers for the study. In all, the total sample size used was one hundred and twenty (120). The main research instrument used in gathering data was the questionnaire. The conduct of the research was guided by three Research questions. The statistical tools used for the analysis were frequency and percentage distributions and the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient. The study revealed that even though teachers are more committed to ensuring that pupils are enrolled and retained in school, they need to be more proactive especially in following up to absentee children and their parents.

Key words: Child labour, drop out, child retention, teacher commitment, parent commitment