Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine the factors responsible for low school attendance among Junior High School Students and their effects on Academic Performance in Elmina Circuit in the Central Region of Ghana. The descriptive survey design was adopted to examine the factors that could lead to low school attendance. The sample comprised 39 teachers, 13 head teachers, 39 parents and 39 students. Purposive sampling was employed to select the students and their parents as well as the teachers and the head teachers. Three sets of self-structured questionnaires were used to elicit data from the teachers, head teachers and students whiles an interview guide was used to elicit information from the parents. Reliability co-efficient of 0.81, 0.79 and 0.71, were obtained for the Teachers’ Questionnaire, Headteachers’ Questionnaire and students Questionnaire respectively. Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze the data and Pearson correlation to examine the effect of low school attendance on the academic performance of the students.
The study revealed that several factors account for low school attendance among junior high school students. These are poverty on the part of parents, corporal punishment, poor facilities in schools, students’ involvement in fishing and petty trading, bullying in schools and poor academic performance. It was recommended that parents should be helped to acquire some skills such as bread baking, batik production, bead making, to make them financially sound. The concept of credit unions should also be instilled in parents to enable them access funds to earn additional money for trading. Government should make a policy banning students’ involvement in petty trading and fishing during school hours.
