The Researcher’s Journal (TRJ) Vol 2, Issue No.1,
pp 49 – 64; March, 2019
Influence of Poverty on the Educational Rights of Children in Niger
State, Nigeria
1 Olowonefa, Grace Simadi and 2 Iyala, Felix Emeka
1 Department of Educational Management, Faculty of Education,
University of Abuja
Email: gracesimadi@gmail.com; Mobile: +23480135575190
2 Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Nigeria
Email: iyalafelix@gmail.com; Mobile: +2348037245441
Abstract
The study explores the influence of poverty on educational right of the children in Niger State. Two objectives with corresponding research questions and hypotheses were generated to guide the study.
The research design that was used for this study was cross-sectional survey research design. The total number of senior public secondary school students in Niger State at the time of the study was 45, 620, while the total number of senior public secondary schools was 85. The sample size of the study consisted of 354 public senior secondary school students drawn from 12 secondary schools.
The sample size of study was determined using Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table for determining sample size. Simple random sampling technique was employed to select the participants who responded to the questionnaire. The instrument used for data collection was a 12-itern Questionnaire called “Students’ Questionnaire on the Influence of Poverty on Educational Right of Children” (SQIPERC). The questionnaire was rated using a 5 points Likert scale type measurement of strongly Agree (SA=5), Agree (A=4), Disagree (D=3), strongly Disagree (SD=2) and Undecided (U=1) for positively worded questions, while for negatively worded questions, the scoring is reversed. The two (2) formulated hypotheses were tested using t-test statistic at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of this study revealed that poverty has a significant influence on student’s school attendance in Niger State, Nigeria, as a result of the influence of poverty on dropout rates among secondary school students in Niger State and it equally has a significant influence on children access to quality secondary education in Niger State. The study recommended that secondary education has to be made free and compulsory by Niger State Government to reduce the rate of drop out among students from poor family background, and public secondary schools in Niger State need to be well-equipped and staffed with qualified teachers to enable every child in the state to have access to quality secondary education.
Keywords: Poverty, children’s educational rights, school dropouts, access to quality school etc.