BARRIERS TO GIRL CHILD RETENTION IN SCHOOLS IN THE SUBURB AREAS OF IBADAN

Abstract

In any educational system, educating the girl child is of utmost importance. Nevertheless, retaining these girls within the educational system is a great concern in the study. The present research sought to investigate barriers to girl child retention in schools in the suburb areas of Ibadan. The conditions which serves as the background characteristics of why the girls who drop-out from schools and the barriers that causes of the lack of retention in schools were the focus of the study among the participants. The qualitative approach was the method adopted to gather information for the research making use of purposive sampling and snowballing that helped to select 10 drop-out girls, 10 in-schools girls, 5 parents, 5 teachers from selected schools and 2 officers from Federal Ministry of Labour and Child-education. In-depth interview was the main instrument used to gather data and descriptive statistics was utilized to analyze the data. Evidence from the result of the study showed that modern dayslavery/trafficking, lack of parental support, financial problem, teenage pregnancy and failure during exams were among the highest ranking reasons that formed the foremost
barriers to girl child retention in schools. It is therefore recommended in the study that parents having financial difficulties should consider a gap year for the girls instead of allowing them dropout of school, also academic and emotional support should be established by the schools and governments.