Household factors influencing child dropout in government-aided primary schools; case study: Wakiso district

Abstract

The study examined the household factors influencing child dropout in government aided primary schools in Wakiso district. Universal primary education has registered tremendous enrolment figures in the past years but there is still evidence showing that not all children are able to complete the seven-year primary education cycle as there significant dropouts. Therefore, the study sought to investigate child dropout in primary schools in the context of household factors such as parental education, child gender, number of school going age children, the household head health status and employment status. The major objective of the study was to examine the factors influencing child drop out in government aided primary schools with specific reference to house-related factors. The specific objectives include; to establish the relationship between parents’ level of education and child dropout from school, to examine the relationship between child’s gender and child dropout from school, to establish the relationship between number of primary school going age children in the household and child dropout in school, to assess whether health status of household members has an influence on child dropout from the school and to establish the relationship between household head employment status and child dropout from the school. This study used primary data primary collected from the field survey and secondary data was also gathered through literature review from various publications, journals and internet. The study used a cross-sectional design that involved collecting data on various issues related to household factors influencing child drop out in government aided schools at a single period in time. Univariate Analysis capturing descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and cumulative frequencies were used to describe participants’ responses on the variables under consideration. Bivariate analysis using the chi square statistic was used to investigate whether distributions of categorical variables differ from one another. A multivariate analysis using a binary logistic regression model was run to establish the relationships between the independent variables and dependent variable. Findings from the study showed that the child gender preferred, with a base of female was statistically significant given that the p-value of 0.002 and the odds ratio 0.432 .This meant that male children had less chances of dropping out of school than their female counterparts. A positive significant relationship between the number of school going age children in the house hold and child drop was established with a p value 0.003 with the odds ratio of 0.614. This implied that an increase in the number of children in the household from 3 to 4 would significantly lead to child drop out form school. The study recommended government to promote girl- child education, encourage manageable family sizes, improve health services, focus on creating employment opportunities and enhance household incomes to reduce poverty levels.