Abstract:
The purpose of the study was to explore the effects of child work and schooling on
their human capital development for nation building among basic school pupils in the
Upper Manya Krobo District. The convergent parallel mixed method design was used
for the study. The population comprised of basic school pupils in the Upper Manya
Krobo District for the 2020/2021 academic year. Systematic random sampling was
used to select 200 respondents for the quantitative data while purposive sampling was
used to select 10 participants for the study. An open-ended questionnaire and an
unstructured interview guide were used as the main data collection instruments. The
criteria posited by Lincoln and Guba (1985) were used to ascertain the trustworthiness
of the interview guide whilst the open-ended questionnaire after piloting yielded a
Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.83. The quantitative data was analyzed using
frequency and percentages while the qualitative data was analyzed thematically. The
findings of the study revealed that household poverty, poor health condition of parents
and single parenting were the main factors pushing pupils to engage in child work.
Also, the findings of the study indicated that the nature of work and the long hours of
engagements resulted in pupils’ tiredness and absenteeism which had a direct impact
on their academic performance. It is recommended that parents should find alternative
coping and adaptation strategies to enable their wards stay in school. Moreover, the
government through the District Chief Executive must ensure effective
implementation of the livelihood programme to afford parents the opportunity to cater
for their wards physical, academic and health needs.
Description:
A thesis in the Department of Social Studies,
Faculty of Social Science, submitted to the School of
Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Master of Philosophy
(Social Studies)
in the University of Education, Winneba
OCTOBER, 2021
