CHALLENGES AND COPING STRATEGIES OF STUDENT-WORKERS WITHOUT STUDY LEAVE WITH PAY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST

ABSTRACT

This study focused on the challenges and coping strategies of student workers without study leave with pay in the University of Cape Coast. A set of questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. In all, 84 studentworkers were sampled through the use of the snowball sampling method to serve as respondents for the study. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data on the demographic profile and all the research questions formulated for the study. Frequencies, mean scores and standard deviation were used to analyse the data. Independent samples t- test was used to analyse the research hypothesis. It was found out that student-workers face a number of problems comprising academic, non-academic, socio- economic and personal ones. The student-workers also adopt a number of strategies both official and non-official ones to cope with the various challenges they face. There is a significant difference in the coping strategies adopted by male and female student-workers on the university campus. The study among other things recommended that the Government and Non-Governmental Organisations should help by providing scholarships and bursaries for student- workers. The university should organise seminar, workshops and symposia to sharpen the skills of students on how to combine many task at the same time.