dc.description.abstract | This research was intended to investigate the effect of poverty on school dropouts among children aged 6-12 years in Ruhunga parish, Rubaya Sub- County, Mbarara district. The assessment was made on poverty, school dropout and other factors(control variables) that would influence school dropout, using primary data from Ruhunga parish in seven villages: Ekiyayo, Kaguhanzya Ruhunga central, Gaitemba, Keigoshoora, Rugyereera and Kateete, the sample size being 96 households. Poverty was assessed by the percentage share of expenditure on education by a given household. The analysis was made at three levels that is: univariate, bivariate and multivariate analysis. In the results, majority of the household heads were married (75%), majority of the household heads did not have dropout cases (76%) and most of the parents had positive attitude towards education (92%). At bivariate level, the results indicated that parents‟ attitude towards education, marital status of the household head, gender of the pupil and percentage share of expenditure on education were significantly related to school dropout, while Distance to school, household size and highest education level of the household headdid not have a significant relationship with school dropout. Therefore, at this level, three of the hypotheses were rejected, implying that there was a significant relationship between school dropout and the three explanatory variables: Parent‟s attitude towards education, gender of the pupil and marital status of the household head. However, we failed to reject the rest of the hypotheses, implying that the explanatory variables: distance to school, household size, and highest education level attained by the household head were insignificantly associated with school dropout.In multivariate analysis, of the four significant factors from bivariate analysis, only the percentage share of expenditure on education was significantly related to school dropout. The rest were not significantly associated with school dropout. The study recommends that parents should be sensitized to improve their attitude towards education, and households should increase the percentage share of their income allocated to education. | en_US |