IMPACT OF PARENT’S WORK STATUS ON SCHOOLING: ANALYSIS OF NIGERIAN POST PRIMARY SCHOOL ENROLMENT

Poverty is a major economic crisis that has plagued Nigeria for decades especially being the most populous country in Africa and tenth in the world. Its impact on family finance, which is determined by work status of parent is enormous. Work status of parent is an indicator of the type and level of education parents are able to afford for their children. The study examined the impact of family income on children access to education especially post-primary school level. The analyses were done across gender, age and family income. UNICEF state of the World’s children country statistics between 2000-2015 was adopted for the study. Also, six focus group discussions were conducted in series of randomly selected post-primary school, teens in apprenticeship training (selected across prominent professions which are tailoring, mechanic and food venture) and parents were also interviewed. All respondents live within Lagos metropolis. The result revealed the trend in post-primary school enrolment from year 2000 to 2015 across gender. It also indicated more male than female school enrolment. Findings of the study show that most children attend the government funded post-secondary school closest to their home because it is affordable by their parents compare to privately owned schools. While some oft the teens in apprentice training revealed that their parent could not afford to pay for further schooling other intentionally opted out of school because they couldn’t cope with the demands. The study concludes that parent’s income is a significant determinant of child’s enrolment into post-secondary school and that most parents enroll their wards in school with no specific focus.