The Impact of Sugar Cane Growing on School Dropout: Case Study - Kakira Sub County, Jinja District

Abstract

The ministry of education and sports (MoES) has registered dropouts year to year basing on the number of pupil/students enrolled at different levels hence this study highlighted on the impact of sugarcane growing on school dropout in Kakira sub county, Jinja district .Therefore this was generally aimed at understanding the impact of sugarcane growing as could be the basis of knowing the real impact on schools. This study involved and determined the drivers to school dropout hence joining sugarcane activities and lastly the measures to curb the vice. Sampling data design was used and it involved selecting a purposive sample of thirty nine persons (39) that is to say 30 households and 9 head teachers. Also additional information was both from primary and secondary sources of information and hence data collection involved the use of questionnaire, interviewing and more others. Lastly quantitative data obtained in the field, fed and analyzed using Statistical Package of Social Science 16.0 (SPSS 16.0). The study found out that the majority of the respondents were of the age between 30-40 indicating that they owned children and in their responses, they indicated that at a greater extent, sugar cane growing in the sub county has led to the rampant school dropout. The study also concluded that a of our study “Kakira sub county” is mostly attributed to prevalence of sugar cane growing where 90.7 are engaged in sugarcane growing activities in the area and some of these activities include cutting, loading and offloading which make up a greater percentage of 74%, other include digging which constitutes 20% and then driving which is contribute 5% to the dropouts in the area and the study recommended that several intervention should be put into consideration and some of these include government intervention through setting up of strict laws and policies, regulation of farmers, parents with their respective children defined inform of pupils and students should be sensitized about the values and importance‟s of education