Prevalence of baby factory and educational access in public secondary schools in Rivers State

This paper examined the prevalence of baby factory and educational access in public secondary schools in Rivers State. Specifically, the paper aimed at determining the impacts of baby factory prevalence on educational access of students, identifying areas mostly used for baby factory in Rivers State, determining factors responsible for the prevalence of baby factory in Rivers State, and to ascertain the extent baby factory prevalence impacts on educational access of students in Rivers State. The study adopted qualitative and descriptive research approach where secondary data were used as the main sources of data collection. The secondary data were collected from published journals, articles, seminar papers, periodicals, as well as interviews and semi-structured questionnaire. The population of the study consisted of all 185,146 senior secondary schools Students in Rivers State. A sample of 400 students was used. This was derived using Taro Yamane population determination formula. A self-designed questionnaire instrument titled: “Prevalence of Baby Factory and Educational Access Questionnaire (PBEAQ)” was used to elicit information from the respondents. Test re-test method was used to determine the reliability of the instrument which reliability co-efficient of 0.84 at 0.05 level of significance. Data collected was analysed using mean and standard deviation with the criterion mean of 2.50 as accepted while below is rejected. The study revealed that maternity, clinics, water bottling companies, prayer houses etc., are areas mostly used for the perpetuation of baby factory. The study further revealed that poverty, lack of information on human trafficking, corruption, are among the factors responsible for the prevalence of baby factory and can impact on access to education .Based on the confirmation, the following recommendations were made among others; intensive advocacy against baby factory prevalence, promulgation of laws, enlightenment of the teenage girls on prevention of unwanted pregnancy among others.