The impact of being a child street hawker on educational engagement and attainment in Nigeria

Health Informatics & Technology Conference

October 20-22, 2014 Double Tree by Hilton Baltimore - BWI Airport, USA

Nzubechukwu Okeke

Accepted Abstracts: J Health Med Informat

Abstract :

Child Street hawking is a growing public health issue in developing countries like Nigeria with its root cause as poverty and this results in constant migration of people to the commercial cities in search of livelihood. Majority of these are young people who lack the basic skills and education required for securing a meaningful job in the formal economic sectors or for self-dependence, so they resort to street hawking for survival. A journal search was conducted using PubMed, SpringerLink, AJOL, Science Direct, JSTOR, Scopus, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Google scholar data bases for studies published within 2002-2014. The 12 studies which qualified based on the inclusion criteria were systematically reviewed. The result showed the impacts of being a child street hawker on education to include: Low rate of participation, increased rate of truancy and lateness to school, loss of interest, low progression, high rate of dropout and low educational attainment. It could thus be submitted that street hawking is detrimental to the educational development of the street hawkers; therefore government should make a concerted effort to support children from poor parental backgrounds to enjoy uninterrupted basic education and good health. In the site of increased poverty and unemployment rate, the introduction of skilled based education (Technical School) or skill acquisition program will be more engaging and appropriate. This will provide with the necessary skills they need for self dependence and they could create job for themselves instead of searching for one. This will invariably improve the health and wellbeing of street hawkers and the nation?s economy.

Biography :

Nzubechukwu Okeke is a PhD scholar and an Academic Associate at Cardiff Metropolitan University. He has had some short courses/trainings in Communicable Disease Control in Humanitarian Emergencies with WHO and London School of hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Disease Surveillance with University of Minnesota. He is a Fellow of Royal Society of Public Health and a prince certified Project manager. He has spent the major part of his career in community based health promotion activities with organization like UNICEF, NHS South of Tyne and Wear and Public health locality team Sunderland city council as a volunteer. His research interests include disease prevention, substance abuse among young people, child labor and health behavioral change.