SOCIO-ECONOMIC PREDICTORS OF CHILD LABOUR:IMPLICATIONS ON SCHOOLING IN NIGERIA

Child labour is one of the global issues occupying the forefront of national development agendas.While the traditionalist believe it is capable of augmenting family income for family upkeep andserves as alternative means of livelihood, it is adjudged in this modern era as impediment to childschooling, violation of child rights, engenders vicious cycle of poverty, deprivation in health andsocial status. The study therefore investigated the predictors of children’s involvement in childlabour, its impact on school enrolment and quality of education in Nigeria. It employed onlyquantitative research technique. The respondents were selected using purposive and accidentalsampling techniques. The opinion of 130 working children (between the ages of 5 and 14) weresought about the likely predictors for working and its impact on schooling. The findings from thestudy revealed that there are significant relationships between parents’ educational attainment,type of parents occupation and the practice of child labour (X2 = 25.89, P = 0.0001). The studyattributed poor school performance as an adverse effect of child labour as indicated by the workingschool children. The study concludes that parents must take responsibility for their children whilegovernment enforce laws against child labour and the implementation of free compulsory educationfor all children