FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR CHILD LABOUR AND STREET HAWKING AMONG TEENAGERS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN OSHIMILI SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, DELTA STATE

Abstract

The study focused on factors responsible for child labour and street hawking among teenagers in secondary schools in Oshimili South Local Government Area, Delta State. Three research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprised 4,819 public junior secondary school students in the area. Out of which 220 was randomly selected. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data. To ascertain the face validity of the instrument, the draft of the instrument was given to two experts in the Department of Educational Foundations. The researcher with the help of two research assistants administered 220 copies of the instrument and retrieved 216 copies which were used for analysis. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, while ttest was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed thatparents’ socioeconomic background influence child labour and street hawking; child labour and street hawking influence academic performance; and child labour and street hawking influence study habits of teenagers in secondary schools.The study recommends among other things that government at all levels should provide free basic education, enact laws banning all forms of child labour such asstreet hawking among school age children and provide scholarship to aid the disadvantage parents.