Pregnancy and Academic Attainment of Female Students of Tertiary Institutions in Lafia Metropolis of Nasarawa State

Abstract

Motherhood is a daunting yet irreplaceable part of human life that contributes immensely to the survival of the family and the society. It is a task that can take the entire time of women because it involves many activities. However, most women combine this already demanding responsibility with educational pursuits. It was therefore needful to empirically explore the likely effect of this situation and as a result, this study undertook to assess motherhood and academic attainment of female students of tertiary institutions in Lafia Metropolis. The main objective of the study, was to assess the effect of motherhood on the academic attainments of female students. The study employed a mixed methods approach which combined both quantitative and qualitative methods and adopted a cross-sectional survey design to include all women who had been pregnant while actively studying or were pregnant at the time of study in the Nasarawa State Polytechnic (NasPoly) and the Federal University of Lafia (FULAFIA). From a total of 365 respondents who were surveyed, the mean age was 29.6 with 39.7% of them being within the age range of 26-30. Results indicated that a significantly higher proportion of respondents (95%) P<0.001 perceived that pregnancy had a negative effect on their academic attainment. The study recommended convenient child spacing and use of innovative technology such as online studies for regular students as a means to help student mothers study outside the classroom.