Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of some selected determinants on school attendance of child laborers in Bangladesh. For this, the data were collected from 1157 child laborers of Gaibandha district, using purposive sampling technique based on the scheduled questionnaire. To analyze the collected data, univariate analysis, c²- test statistic and logistic regression technique are used respectively. The results have been revealed that 63.80% child labors have completed their primary level education and 70.80% child labors have left school at age (5 - 17) years. Also, it is found that 80.80% child aged from 5 to 17 years were not going to school but 79.80% child labors have interest to go to school. The effect of respondents’ age, working hour per day and working place on school attendance was found to be negative while educational qualification of father and father alive has positive significant effect on school attendance. The interesting point is that mother’s education has strong impact than father’s education. Poverty was found to be the major cause of child labor to leave their school. Long-time work of the child labor revealed fewer attendants to the school. it is evident from the study that children of large families are more vulnerable to less schooling. Finally, this paper provides some suggestive policy measures which may be very effective to increase school attendance of the child laborers.

Key words: Child labor, school attendance, c²- test, logistic regression.