Participant recruitment and data collection This research helps identify the challenges that undergraduate health sciences students face due to the lack of pocket money and the perceived effects of their financial hardships on their learning activities. The aim of this study is to explore the impact of a lack of pocket money on undergraduate health sciences students’ learning activities during their clinical years, with pocket money being defined as the income that a student receives from a parent or guardian. In Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Higher Education Proclamation and Cost Sharing Regulations provide room and board, and cover the tuition fees for those public university students who pass the Ethiopian Higher Education Entrance Examination however, it does not provide students with pocket money for other expenses. Moreover, several previous studies suggest that during clinical placements, health sciences students face increased financial costs such as transportation, food expenses, clothing, and other material needs, further exacerbating the stress on low SES students.

However, students from low SES backgrounds have lower educational aspirations, persistence rates, and educational achievements during college. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Conference on Higher Education stated that 'higher education needs to be a fundamental right for all', regardless of a student’s socioeconomic status (SES). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting information files are also attached within.įunding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Received: OctoAccepted: NovemPublished: December 9, 2020Ĭopyright: © 2020 Kumsa et al. PLoS ONE 15(12):Įditor: Richard Bruce Mink, Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, UNITED STATES Citation: Kumsa MJ, Lemu BN, Nguse TM (2020) Lack of pocket money impacts Ethiopian undergraduate health science students learning activities.

For pocket money