Contribution of Child Labour to Children’s Schooling in and around the University of Cape Coast

Abstract

Child labour has become a global phenomenon especially in developing countries. Most discussants of the topic focus on rural Ghana where agriculture dominates economic activity with little or no attention given to the presence of child labour in educational institutions. This study set out to find out the contribution of child labour to the schooling of children in and around University of Cape Coast community. Structured interview and observation were used to collect data from respondents who were obtained through the snowball method. In all, fifty (50) respondents were involved in the study. It also found that, economic constrains, poverty and occupational background of parents compel children to get themselves involved in child labour mainly in the form of providing domestic services for students. The data shows that child labour has both positively and negatively contribution to the education of children in the study area. Positively, it enables some of the children to buy school items for themselves. On the contrary, the child labour takes most of the respondents’ time making them get to school late among other. Based on these findings, it was recommended that the activities of these children be regulated to some extent to ensure that even as they engage in the labour, they do so in such a way to still have adequate quality time for their school attendance, and home work among others.