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THE EFFECT OF SCHOOL STRUCTURE AND ENVIRONMENT ON THE PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENT

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The school is a social and learning agent that provides the environment upon which a child may be formally educated in order to attain educational goals. Human beings, have unlimited capacity to learn, but might however be limited by the behavior patterns and facilities that the immediate environment offers. According to Umoh (2006), nature only provides the raw materials in form of potentials, but it is the environment that determines the extent of development.

The menace of academic failure among the young school graduates has stared both the government and stakeholders in the face. There is a consensus of opinion about the fallen standard of education as a big problem that is hindering the posterity of the Nigerian nation in terms of quality man power resources. Most students in secondary school experience academic problem that manifests itself in the form of academic poor performance. Many researchers have sought to find out the reasons for the downward trend in the academic performance of secondary school students. Adesehinwa (2013) reported effect of family type and poor funding on students’ academic achievement; Ogbemudia and Aiasa (2013) reported lack of good home foundation for pupils as cause of poor performance by students; Achieng (2012) found home factors, student factors and institutional capacity as the causes while Adesehinwa and Aremu (2010) posited that factors resident in child, family, society, government and the school may be composite causative effects for these downtrend; they, however concluded that there is a need for each of these variables to be considered extensively, hence the focus of this study to critically consider influence of home on academic performance of secondary school students. Other studies showed that the level of family cohesion (Caplan et al, 2002 cited in Diaz, 2004), and family relationships (Buote, 2001) proved themselves capable of predicting performance.

The issue of poor academic performance of students in Nigeria has been of much concern to the government, parents, teachers and even student themselves. The quality of education not only depends on the teachers as reflected in the performance of their duties, but also in the effective coordination of the school variables. It is believed that the school physical features has a form of relationship with the student academic performance in terms of the school size, structure, ownership, location and type. A school with a highly populated students may result in the teachers not been able to monitor the performance of the students and thus reducing the students’ academic performance and also, research has postulated a form of severe relationship between the ownership of school and the students’ academic performance say public school and private school. Also, the location and availability of educational resources at the disposal of the students in terms of school variable affect their level of academic performance.

Environment can be defined as a system within which living organisms interacts with the physical element while education environment is a learning place where the learner learn and interact with learning facilities in order to be socialized and face the challenges in the society. Agusiegbe (2004) sees environments as consisting of all elements existing around man and which exert some influence on him. These include physical, biological and social attributes. Environment can also be seen as aggregate of all the external condition and influence affecting the life and development of an organism. 4 In this study, environment includes all the external condition and influences in the school that affect the academic achievement of the student such as laboratory equipment, library facilities, qualified teachers, furniture, school building, good administrative management, teacher pupil relationship and school location among others. The issue of poor academic performance of students in Nigeria has been of much concern to the government, parents, teachers and even student themselves. The quality of education not only depends on the teachers as reflected in the performance of their duties, but also in the effective coordination of the school environment (Ajao, 2001). Education is an essential factor for effective development of any country like Nigeria. The western education adopted by Nigeria is highly based on individualism, socio-economic and internationalization which are geared towards national development. From the fore going one can see that school environment plays a crucial role in academic achievement of a child. This problem of poor performance is more pronounced in ill-equipped schools hence it becomes necessary to find out the influence of school environment on the academic achievement of students of public secondary schools in Enugu State.

 1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The problem under study has to do with an unsatisfactory condition of the educational system being operated in Nigeria. The establishment of government schools/community schools has resulted in a situation where by some school were favored in terms of the provision of rich environment than others. It has been very difficult if not impossible for government to standardize the school environment. Thus the environment varies from school to school. Some schools have adequate school buildings, good library and suitable textbooks, good administrative management, professionally qualified teachers, good laboratory equipment as well as good location. While in some schools little or none of these exist. It is because of this that Chike-Okoli (1997) in line with Ikediashi (2002) have pointed out that poor teaching experience, inadequate or poor physical infrastructure, unsatisfactory building design are likely to cause some physical discomfort for the students and are therefore bound to influence their academic achievement. The problem of this study put in a question form is: What is the influence of school facilities and equipment on the academic achievement of students of public secondary schools in Enugu State?

1.3   OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main objective of the study is to determine the influence of school environment on the academic achievement of students of public secondary school in Enugu State. The specific objectives is:

1.     To assess the influence of school physical facilities on academic achievement of secondary school students.

2.     To investigate the extent the quality of the physical school environment with regard to school buildings affect the academic achievements of students of public secondary school

3.     To determine the extent school location affect student’s academic achievement of public secondary schools.

4.     To find out the extents in which school facilities affect student’s academic achievement of public secondary schools

1.4   RESEARCH QUSTION

The following questions will guide the researcher while conducting the research and also help to achieve the specified objectives:

1.     What influence does school physical facilities has on the academic achievement of secondary school students?

2.     Does the physical school environment of the school buildings affects the academic achievements of students of public secondary school?

3.     To what extent does school location affect student’s academic achievement of public secondary schools?

4.     What is the extent the school facilities affects the student’s academic achievement

1.5   SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study will expose the teachers and it will serve as a guide that would enable them understand their students and know the approach or method to adopt in teaching so as to bridge the gap of variation in academic performance and how to organize to use to see that every student is carried along no matter his or her family’s condition.

Furthermore, the findings and recommendations would be useful to the government, curriculum planners and examination bodies in policy making and in planning educational strategies for Nigeria students.

Finally, this work will be a guideline to the future researcher who will carry out their research work on this area. It will raise more question on the home environment and it effect on the academic performance of secondary school students and open up new areas of study.

 1.6   SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study covers the schools in Enugu state but due to time and money samples is taken from Nsukka local government area of Enugu state.

1.7   DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

There are many factors affecting the academic performance of students in Nigeria, but this study only investigated the school environment. Besides, this study investigated only the secondary schools in Nsukka local government area in Enugu state.

1.8   DEFINITION OF TERMS

Effect: the capacity to have an influence on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something

Environment: the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates

Performance: the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has achieved their short or long-term educational goals. 

Secondary school: a school intermediate between elementary school and college

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