ABSTRACT
This project work
focuses on the effects of child abuse on students’ academic performance. The
study attempts to unravel the causes, effects and remedies to child abuse among
secondary school students in Lagos State. It was carried out in Bariga Local
Government Area of Lagos State. A sample of 100 was randomly drawn from
selected secondary schools in the local government and questionnaires were
administered to the respondents. The mean percentage test, which was adopted in
the study’s analysis, indicated that excessive battering of a child by
parents/teacher/guidance; broken homes, child hawking before and after school
and unconducive learning environment are all causes of child abuse. Also, it
was found that child abuse negatively affects child’s school performance; such
abused children are vulnerable to early pregnancy. Ill treatment as well causes
permanent and life-long trauma, thereby making children develop low cognition
to school subjects. The preaching of good morals by religious leaders to
parents and guardians was part of the recommendations made in this study. Also,
melting out punishment in form of fine on erring parents/guidance especially
those forcing their children to hawk, and prevention from bad for peer
influence will help eliminate or reduce to the barest minimum the incidence of
child abuse among secondary school students.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page i
Certification ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgement iv
Table of Contents v-vi
Abstract vii
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem 4
1.3 Purpose of Study 4
1.4 Research Questions 5
1.5 Significance of the Study 5
1.6 Delimitation/Scope of Study 5
1.7 Definition of Terms 5
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 The Concept of Child Abuse 6
2.2 Consequences of Child Abuse in Child’s
Academic
Performance
in Nigeria 7
2.3 Causes of Child Abuse in Nigeria 9
2.3.1 People Involved in Child Abuse 13
2.3.2 Ways of Child – Abuse 14
2.4 Effect of Child Abuse on Student’s Academic
in Nigeria 15
2.4.1 Human Right and Child –Abuse: Issues and
Objectives 16
2.5 Factors Affecting Child Abuse and Neglect
in Nigeria 17
2.6 Strategies of Preventing Child Abuse in
Nigeria 22
2.7 Summary of Reviews 24
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction 25
3.1 Research Design 25
3.2 Population of Study 25
3.3 Sample and Sampling Techniques 25
3.4 Instrumentation 26
3.5 Validation of the Instrument 26
3.6 Reliability of the Instrument 26
3.7 Data Collection Procedure 26
3.8 Method of Data Analysis 27
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS, PRESENTATION OF RESULT AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Analysis of Research Questions 28
4.2 Discussion of Findings 33
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Summary of Findings 35
5.2 Conclusion 36
5.3 Recommendations 36
References 38
Questionnaire 43
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Child abuse and
neglect are fastly becoming universal phenomena in the current world societies
despite the fact the child’s rights are being recognized and even to some
extent, protected by legislations and constitutions in many countries of the
world. Childhood abuse potentially has major economic implications for Nigerian
schools and for their students. Even conservative estimates suggest that at
least 8 percent of U.S. children experience sexual abuse before age 18, while
17 percent experience physical abuse and 18 percent experience physical neglect
(Flisher, Kramer, Hoven, & Greenwald, 2007). Childhood maltreatment, and
aversive parenting practices, in general, has the potential to delay the
academic progress of students (Shonk & Cicchetti, 2001).
It therefore has the potential to undermine schools’ ability to satisfy
standards of school progress entailed in the No Child Left Behind legislation (U.S. Department of
Education, 2005), putting them at risk for loss of
federal funding. It also has the potential to adversely affect students'
economic outcomes in adulthood, via its impact on achievement in middle and
high school (Cawley, Heckman,
& Vytlacil, 2001).
Child abuse has been
defined by the African network for the prevention and protection against child
Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN) as the intentional and unintentional acts which
endanger the physical, health, emotional, moral and the educational welfare of
the child. Hopper (2004) also described child abuse as any act of maltreatment
or subjection that endangers a child’s physical, emotional and health development.
Gelles, (2007)
affirmed that child abuse include not only physical assault but also
malnourishment, abandonment, neglect, emotional abuse and sexual abuse.
According to Mba
(2002), prominent form of child abuse in Nigeria are child battering, child labour,
child abandonment, neglect, teenage prostitution, early marriage and forced
marriage. Kolander (2000) stated that emotional and sexual abuses are highly
noticeable in Nigeria. Oji (2006) observed that babies born by teenage mothers
in Nigeria were 625,024 as at the reporting time.
According to Walsh
(2005), unwanted pregnancy has been identified to be a major cause of child
abuse in Nigeria. Many abused children were unwanted in the first place and
turned out to be a severe burden on their emotionally immature or impoverished
parents. Odey (2003) stated that children from poor homes are more vulnerable
to abuse and Todd, (2004) in his support said that Nigeria, which is known
as corrupt nation in Africa is heading towards a dangerous poverty where
its teeming population does not have enough food for healthy living. Oluwole
(2002) equally lamented when analyzing the situation of children which are
being used for house helps. Child labour is the major obstacles to the
achievement of education for all (EFA) and this result into a setback on the
achievement of the world target of universal primary education by 2015.
According to Onye
(2004), child abuse is an evidence of poverty. Aderinto and Okunola (2008)
equally recorded that some children reported that they were pushed into street
hawking for maintenance needs of the family. That means that they are the
breadwinners of their various families at their early age. It is a common sight
in major parks and streets in Nigeria to see children of school age between
6-16 years as bus/taxi mates, hawking wares, pushing trucks for money or
begging for money when they are supposed to in the classroom learning in the
schools. All these point to the fact that the worst hit groups are children who
are at the risk of diseases, exploitation, neglect and violence.
Although, the
potential impact of child abuse is
large, but evidence of causal effects of maltreatment on children's longer term
outcomes in school is generally lacking. The current state of evidence for a
link between childhood maltreatment (physical and sexual abuse or neglect) and
school performance is limited to negative associations between maltreatment and
school performance. On average, children who are abused receive lower ratings
of performance from their school teachers, score lower on cognitive assessments
and standardized tests of academic achievement, obtain lower grades, and get
suspended from school and retained in grade more frequently (Erickson, Egeland,
& Pianta, 2003). Abused children are also prone to difficulty in forming
new relationships with peers and adults and in adapting to norms of social
behavior (Shields, Cicchetti and Ryan, 2004). Although, these examples of
negative associations between child abuse and school performance are suggestive
of causal effects, they could be spuriously driven by unmeasured factors in
families or neighborhoods that are themselves correlated with worse academic
outcomes among children (Todd and Wolpin, 2003).
In addition, not much
of the previous evidence linking childhood maltreatment to worse school
performance generalizes well to older children in middle and high school and to
children not already identified as needing services. Evidence of the impacts of
maltreatment on academic performance in the general population of middle and
high school students is needed to establish evidence of effects on schooling
attainment in the general education population and on economic outcomes in
adulthood.
Using a large dataset
of United State of American (U.S.A) adolescent sibling pairs, this study
explores effects of maltreatment-neglect, physical aggression, and sexual abuse
on adolescents’ performance in middle and high school. First, the questions of
how childhood maltreatment theoretically could negatively affect later school
performance, and of how unobserved family background and neighborhood
characteristics might influence ordinary least squares and fixed effects
regression estimates of relationships between childhood maltreatment and later
school performance, are discussed. Second, empirical estimates from models that
controlled for observable and unobservable family and neighborhood
characteristics are presented.
1.2 Statement of Problem
Grill (2009) stated
that the school can do a lot of things about child abuse since it has a way of
affecting the school system. The problem of child abuse have long been existing
in Nigeria, and have even become more even devastating to the society has
whole. That history of child abuse in Bariga Local Government Area of Lagos State is as old as the persistence
of the phenomenon in Lagos itself cannot be overemphasized. Children suffered
all forms of abuse ranging from child battering, child labour, child
abandonment, neglect, teenage prostitution, early marriage and forced marriage.
And in most cases, the parents are even at the centre of the root cause of all
these social maltreatment. The school
though, as an agent of socialization portends
to have a strong and overwhelming influence on the development of
the child, but observation has shown
that these essence of education could
probably be defeated if the children are
made to continually suffer the pains
of child labour (Martins 2010). This
study however, centers on the extent to which the school has been involved in
its attempt to develop the child within the social context of child abuse. And
It is in the light of these, that the study attempts to unravel the major
causes of child abuse and how it affects the child’s educational performance.
1.3 Purpose of Study
This research project
has its main objectives the problem of finding out the effect of child abuse on
the academic performance of secondary school student in Bariga Local Government
Area of Lagos State. Moreover, this research study sets:
1.
To examine the causes of child
abuse in Bariga Local Government Area
2.
To determine the effect of
child abuse on child’s educational performance in Bariga Local Government Area
3.
To examine the consequences of child abuse on child’s academic
performance.
4.
To determine possible solutions to child abuse among secondary school
students.
1.4 Research Questions.
1. What are the causes
of child abuse in Bariga Local Government Area?
2. What are the effects
of child abuse in child’s educational performance?
3. Does child abuse lead
students to indulge in anti social activities and make them venerable to social
maltreatment
4. How can the problem
of child abuse be solved in our society?
1.5 Significance of the Study
This study is
to provide parents and school administrators with an insight into how much
damage child abuse and especially hawking after school can have on the academic
development of student in general. This study is significant as the findings
will be beneficial to parents, guardians, teachers, school heads and all other stakeholders
in the educational sector, as they will be better enlightened on the problems
associated with child abuse. Such
knowledge may curtail any further action of exploiting the child especially
been used as object of raising family economy. Hawking no doubt expose the
child to many social vices, thus the fact that the study attempts to create a
model for proper upbringing of the child in the society makes it justifiable.
1.6 Delimitation/Scope
of study
The study laid
emphasis on the effect of child abuse and how it affects the academic
performance of the child using secondary schools in Bariga Local Government
Area as case study.
1.7 Definition
of Terms
The following
terms are defined for the essence of this work:
1.
Child Abuse: harsh or ill
treatment melted on any child; it could be by physical pre emotional means.
2.
Physical Abuse: any form of
corporal punishment melted on a child by his parent, teacher or guardian.
3.
Neglect: paying no
attention, not given enough care, to leave undone what need to be done.
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