CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

So many reasons have been advanced for the poor performances of students in schools prominent among them are the negligence of duty of teachers and parents. Parents seems to depend only on teachers with the believe to change or transform their children to academic experts over night, and anything that falls below this expectation makes the teachers conduct unacceptable.

Few people care to think of other factors responsible for poor performances of students at school. Unfortunately, these factors are so weighty that, it renders the important efforts made by the teachers towards the realization of students academic useless. It is widely accepted that c child’s academic achievement does not only restrict to the school he attends but also the education and educational preparation that particular child has received outside the school. It could be from the family, in the community and from the peer group.

According to Peter Gorski (2004) Awake ‘child’s early years what should parents do?’ “It has been noticed that the foundational background of any child should be properly lay down, else such particular child will face a lot of difficulties in future. Some students who are very brilliant were negatively affected by the attitude of their parents, by not providing them the necessary materials needed in the school and at home.

Apparently, it is now noted that students whose parents encourages and provides their educational needs always perform excellently. It was discovered that many parents do not realized the importance of keeping their children at school beyond some certain level. They preferred to have their children working with them in their trade, and those that are interested in keeping their children at school, never bordered to give a follow up by checking their children’s note. This medium makes the children performance to go below average at school.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS

A lot of various factors have contributed to the effect of parents academic background on pupils performances in Egor L. G. A. of Edo State. Parents educational background can pose a positive or negative expectation from students performance. Such as provision of materials and resources which can support learning. Some families can hold firm to their cultural value which may affect their children. For example, the assumption parents make about choosing an occupational goal for their children.

According to Adefemiwa (1995) he said that when students are given academic assignment to perform at home, some respond to it positively and return with a poorly work done, while others do not make any attempt. In addition, when students are asked to bring materials from home to aid their learning, some responded positively while others responded negatively.

Therefore, the researcher intends to investigate the conditions surrounding the academic performances of pupils. To this end, the research work intends to provide answers to the following questions;

1)    Broken home can lead to poor academic performance in school

2)    Parents academic background can lead to low academic performance

3)    Non-providing of educational needs can as well lead to poor result in academic performance of pupils.

4)    The environment can also cause poor performances of the pupils

PURPOSE OF STUDY

The purpose of this research work is to examine the effect of academic background of parents on academic performance of pupils. The difficulties which parents experienced during their periods of schooling or the type of job they involved which has made them to deviate from their family responsibilities has been a way of robbing the children of their sound academic performances. Solution will be suggested in reducing poor performance among students.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This project would reveal the importance of parents with sound academic background and how it can affect their children academic performance positively or negatively. There are some children with the population sample who are over age or above average intelligence with adequate sensory acuity, whose parents have sound academic background and have all the available opportunities but achieve less than what could be predicted. This could be seen as a significance of educational discrepancy.

RESEARCH QUESTION

The following research questions are formulated;

1)    Does the provision of educational needs affects pupils performance?

2)    Does audiovisual aid influence the performance of pupils?

3)    Does the appreciation of teachers enhance the academic performance of pupils?

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study is limited to all the primary school in Egor Local Governemnt Area of Edo State. The research is based on finding the effect of academic performance of parents on academic performance of pupils.

DEFINITION OF TERMS 

There are certain terms used in this study that have specific connotation to the study. Some of the terms include; academic, educational discrepancy, academic background, parents, pupil performance, education and teachers.

Academic: This is concern about teaching or studying those subject taught to provide skills

Educational discrepancy: People who have sound academic background and who also have adequate opportunities but achieve considerably less than what could be predicted.

Academic background: The detail of a person’s education

Parents: Person’s father or mother

Pupil: A person who is being taught especially a child in school.

Education: A process of teaching, training and learning especially in school or colleges to improve on knowledge and develop skills.

Teacher: Person who inculcate knowledge into another person.