The effects of child labour on the rate of primary school completion in Makuutu sub county, Bugweri district.

Abstract

The general objective of the study was to assess the contribution of child labour on pupils' primary school completion rate in Makuutu Sub County, Bugweri District. The study was guided by three specific objectives. These included, (i) to find out the various forms of Child labour that had influence on pupils’ primary school completion rate, (ii) to find out the causes of Child labour by pupils and (iii) to determine the effects of Child labour on the rate of primary School completion among the pupils of Makuutu Sub County, Bugweri District. The research design used in this study was. Case study research design and Cross sectional design. The sample size used was 427. Data was analyzed using percentages and SPSS and presented in form of tables, Pie -Charts and bar graphs. The findings included; various forms of Child labour were found with a mean of 2.48 interpreted as low implying that child labour existed in the area of research. In regards causes of Child labour, overall mean outcome was 2.39 interpreted as moderate, meaning that in the area of research, poverty was found to be the driving force for the children to get involved in child labour. For objective 3; thus the effects of Child labour, the overall outcome in regards to this was 0.25 interpreted as very low. This means that all the activities as responded to by the respondents contributed negatively to the pupils’ failure to complete the primary school education cycle. It was concluded that various forms of child labour were found to be in existence. It was also concluded that, poverty at the household level was the main contributing factor to child labour. It was established that all activities as responded to by the respondents contributed negatively to the low rate of primary school completion by pupils in Makuutu Sub County. It is recommended that all stakeholders should work together to overcome the various forms of child labour. Poverty was discovered to be the major fuelling factor for child labour. It was therefore recommended to the government of Uganda that there is need for mobilizing and providing the stakeholders (especially parents) with income generating activities in order to enable them fend for their families. It is as well recommended that laws related to child labour prevention in the area of research should be strengthened by all the concerned stakeholders according to International Labour Organization. Stakeholders have to be educated on what child labour is, since they let their children to participate in child labour without knowing what it is and how dangerous this is to the holistic development of the child.