Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions on it.
Work can be an essential part of children’s education and a means of transmitting vital skills from parent to off-spring. In some countries, children are often involved in workshops and small-scale services, and gradually become full-fledged workers later in life. In other countries, teenagers work a few hours a week to earn pocket money. Such work is beneficial as it enhances a child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development without interfering with his schooling, recreation and rest.
Child labour, on the other hand, is about children who work long hours for low wages. often under conditions harmful to their health. This type of work is destructive and exploitative. Child labour takes different forms. By and large, most child workers are in domestic service. Domestic service need not be hazardous, but it often is. Children in domestic service are poorly paid or not paid at all. Their masters set the terms and conditions of their work entirely to their whim. They are deprived of affection, schooling, play and social activity. They are also vulnerable to physical abuse.
Poverty is the most powerful force driving children into hazardous labour. For poor families, the small contribution of a child’s income at home can make the difference between hunger and survival. The parents of child workers are often unemployed or underemployed. They are desperate for a secure income. In developing countries, for example, class-rooms do not have seats, half of the students have no textbooks, and half of the classrooms have no blackboards. It is not surprising that many children who attend such schools abandon schooling for work.
Child labour is aggravated by a modern society that is preoccupied with the demand for low-priced products. Few people seem to care that these may have been produced by millions of anonymous, exploited children. The effects of child labour on the psychological, emotional and intellectual growth of the victims are grave. Such children are deprived of affection. Beatings, insults and punishment by being deprived of food are very common. Ultimately, most child labourers are condemned to lifelong poverty, misery, sickness and illiteracy.
(a) Identify two types of work that are beneficial to children.
(b) According to the passage, what is child labour?
(c) Give two causes of child labour.
(d) In one word, describe the effect of child labour on the child
(e) According to the passage, why do children drop out of school?
(f) …. who work long hours for low wages? (I) What is the grammatical named given to this expression as it is used in the passage? (ii) What is its functions?
(g) …. most child labourers are condemned to lifelong poverty What is the meaning of this expression?
(h) For each of the following words, find another word or phrase which means the same and which can replace it as it is used in the passage: (i) transmitting, (ii) enhances; (iii) vulnerable; (iv) preoccupied; (v) anonymous; (vi) grave.
Explanation
a)(i) Work that is a means of transmitting (vital) skills (from parent to offspring) (ii) Work for earning pocket money
(b) Child labour is when children work for long hours and for low wages under harmful conditions.
(c) The two causes are: (1) Poverty (ii) the demand for low priced goods
(d) Harmful /destructive / detrimental /devastating
(e) The schools ill-equipped ll-equipped / lack (basic) facilities
(f)(i) Adjectival / Relative clause (ii) It qualifies (the noun) children.
(g) It means that most child labourers live in poverty / want throughout their lives.
(h)(i) transmitting - passing on, transferring (ii) enhances improves, boosts, advances, reinforces, promotes (iii) vulnerable — prone, exposed, susceptible, open (iv) preoccupied — engrossed, obsessed, concerned, engaged. (v) anonymous — nameless, unnamed, unidentified, unknown (vi) grave serous, profound, tremendous.