Health-Related Factors Influencing School Drop-Out Rate in Akoko North-East Local Government Arear of Ondo State.

Abstract

This study investigated the health-related factors influencing school drop-out rate in Akoko North-East LGA of Ondo State. Two null hypothesis on the rate at which adolescents drop out of school for health-related reasons is not significantly higher than the rate at which they drop out for non-health related reasons. (e.g Poverty, school performance) and health-related factors responsible(Substance use/abuse, teenage pregnancy/motherhood ,Exposure to sexual harassment and communicable and non communicable disease) are not a significant factor in adolescents dropping out of school were formulated to guide the study. This study adopted the descriptive survey research design. The population of the study consist of all out-of school adolescents in Akoko North-East Local Government Area, Ondo State.The sample for this study comprised of 200 out-of-school adolescents selected from Akoko North-East LGA of Ondo State. The LGA has 13 wards, from which ten were selected using simple random sampling technique. From each ward, the snowballing technique was used to select respondents. At the initial stage of snowballing sampling, the researcher established contacts with five drop-outs from each of the ten wards through friends and relatives residing in them. Each of the respondents was implored to provide information needed to locate other adolescent(s) who were also drop-outs. The follow-up yielded other sets of drop-outs who also recommended others in their category, until 200 respondents were got.  The instrument used to collect data for this study was a self-designed questionnaire. The questionnaire developed was validated by experts in the Department of Physical and Health Education who made reconstructions where necessary in order for it to measure what it was supposed to. The corrected questionnaire was used for the study. The questionnaire was administered twice to the same set of 20 school dropout adolescents who were not part of the sample for the study. There was a two week interval between the two tests. The data obtained from both tests were correlated using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient (PPMCC) to establish the strength of the relationship between the two sets of scores. The result showed that r = 0.82 which was considered reliable enough to make the questionnaire reliable. Two hundred copies of the questionnaire for this study were administered by the researcher and two of his friends who acted as research assistants and who were well taught on what to do. Respondents were contacted individually at their homes, shops motor parks and hawking locations. Administration of the questionnaire was done on the spot to ensure high rate of retrieval and completed questionnaire were collected on the spot. The data collected for this study were analysed using  percentage  and  chi-square. The result revealed that Out of 200 respondents, 156 (78%) respondents dropped out of school for health-related issues, while only 44 (22%) dropped for other reasons like financial problem, while Substance use and abuse (x²=36); Teenage pregnancy/motherhood/fatherhood (x²=36.28), Sexual harassment (13.82) and communicable diseases (x²= 32.73) are significant health-related factors influencing school dropout rate among adolescents. Consequent upon the findings, it was recommended among others, that School authorities should enact strict laws regarding sexual coercion and such laws should be strictly enforced and Schools should regularly mount counseling programmes on human sexuality to help adolescent avoid untimely sex and unwanted pregnancies and unexpected motherhood/fatherhood that can lead to dropping out of school.

Key words: Education, Adolescent, School dropout and Health related issues.

DOI: 10.7176/JHMN/63-11

Publication date:June 30^th 2019