Domestic Child Labor Students and Mathematics Learning

This study portrays the extent of Domestic Child Labour (DCL) Students and mathematics learning at primary level mathematics. It concentrates on the specific themes of emerging research questions such as situation of learning environment to the DCL students, and influencing factors that affect the learning of DCL students in learning mathematics. In dealing with these research questions, I used qualitative design and interpretive paradigm. I explored that they took mathematics as a difficult subject in comparison to others. They were more interested in mathematics than non DCL students but felt difficulty in learning due to the lack of pre-knowledge and less time to practise at home. They felt more comfortable in school than at home. Non DCL students were co-operative to DCL students in class. Questions and responses were common among students and teachers. There was equal participation in class work, group discussion but were irregular in home work. DCL students faced more difficulties in homework than in class work. The major factors affecting the learning of DCL students were: economic condition of the family, size of family, bad attitude of house owner, heavy work load, unavailability of books and stationeries, discipline of the class, different traditions and cultures and preknowledge. Key words; Domestic child labour, Factor, Achievement __________________________________________________*****_________________________________________________ I. Background of the Study Mathematics is the heart of many successful lives (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 1998). Mathematics is considered a key subject of study in the school curricula especially of the primary level throughout the world. It has been considered a main subject for basic literacy, a tool of communication in everyday life. At primary level, mathematics is often called backbone of primary education and fundamental component of literacy. Overall teaching learning process has a major role to build students’ confidence to raise their ability to learn and to enjoy learning mathematics. Regarding the method of learning mathematics, NCTM (1998) has mentioned that students must be engaged in exploring, conjecturing, and thinking rather than only in rote learning of rule and procedures. Pointing to the importance of learning process of mathematics, Burns (1992) mentioned that not only it is important to consider the content of the mathematics curriculum; it is equally important to know about how people learn mathematics. In fact of continuous process of education, mathematics is an essential subject, has been given a significant place, second to language at all level. In this context, the NESP mathematics curriculum (1971) states the importance of mathematics in the following words. “Mathematics, like language is a basic tool of communication. Daily transactions and communication involve the frequent use of mathematical concept. Thus, it is quite natural mathematics is given a very important place, second to language in school education” Children are the beginner of each new generation. We cannot imagine harmonious society in future unless the children, at present, are provided with better fundamental facilities such as basic needs: food, clothes, shelter, fair social environment and parental care and love. These are the fundamental rights of each and every children living in this world. But it is unfortunate that in Nepal the large numbers of children are found to be engaged indifferent types work and deprived of its fundamental rights mentioned above (UNICEF, 1996). The term Child Labor is used for employment of children below a certain age, which is considered illegal by law and custom. The stipulated age varies from country to country and government to government. Child labour is a world phenomenon which is considered exploitative and inhumane by many international organizations. UNICEF (2009) defines child labour as work that exceeds a minimum number of hours, depending on the age of a child and on the type of work. Such work is considered harmful to the child and should therefore be eliminated. Internationally domestic child labours is defined as children working in employer’s house with or without wage Domestic Child Labour are basically employed to perform domestic chores such as washing dishes cooking, cleaning the house, looking after young children and any other household related activities. The domestic child labourer may consider as a helping hand in the various activities. In most definition of DCL [Domestic child labour] a child is usually considered to be below 16 years of age. International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication ISSN: 2321-8169 Volume: 5 Issue: 4 411 – 415 _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 412 IJRITCC | April 2017, Available @ http://www.ijritcc.org _______________________________________________________________________________________ Yet as the new ILO convention stipulate that any reform under the age of 18 years to be protected from employment on the worst form of child labour. These studies consider any person below 14 years working in an employee's household as a domestic servant. Among a population of 23.4 million in Nepal, 10.7 million are children under 16 yrs of agealmost 44% of the total population . According to a national wide study by Tribhuvan University in 1999, 2.6 million children more than 27% are at work as child labours between the age of 6 and 14 yrs. 1.7 million are economically active and 0.9 million are working without pay. In this context, this study had focused on present conditions of domestic child labour of the study area. Students feel mathematics is a difficult subject. DCL students have poor mathematical performance, so it is necessary to find the cause of difficulty in them. Therefore, the major aim of this paper is to explore the learning environment provided to DCLs and to explore the factors affect the learning of DCL students to learn mathematics. Research Questions To fulfil this purpose, I have formulated the following research questions 1. What type of learning environment is provided to DCL students? 2. What are the influencing factors that affect the learning of DCL students in mathematics? II. Conceptual Framework Theoretically, I have attempted to visualize the issues of learning environment of DCLs students from the theoretical perspectives of social constructivism. The social constructivism, it is assumed more collaboration of learning environment which proposed the effective learning procedure to develop new knowledge for DCLs students. The frame work of the study was as follows: Figure1. Conceptual Framework of the Study