Behavioural Problems of Juvenile Street Hawkers in Uyo Metropolis, Nigeria

Abstract

The study sought the opinions of Faculty of Education Students of University of Uyo on the behavioural problems of juvenile street hawkers in Uyo metropolis. Five research hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. This cross-sectional survey employed multi-stage random sampling technique in selecting 200 regular undergraduate students in the Education Faculty of the University of Uyo for the study. The Juvenile Street Hawkers Opinioniare (JUVSHO) developed by the researchers was used in data collection. The hypotheses were tested using chi square statistic at p=0.05 level of significance and appropriate degrees of freedom. Results indicate that juvenile street hawkers develop maladjusted patterns of behaviour, which in turn impair their academic, moral, social, physical, and psychological growth and development thus affecting their future negatively. Based on these findings, it was recommended that government should provide free basic education, improve workers remuneration, provide academic grants and aids to economically disadvantaged parents, and create jobs for unemployed parents, inter alia, in order to keep children from hawking under the guise of subsisting family income at the expense of their total development. Also, the implications of these findings for counselling psychologists in the school system were given.