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CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF BROKEN HOMES ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Education has been viewed by scholars based on their perceptions of what education is about. Castle (1995) sees education as what happened to us from the day we were born to the day we die. Nwachi (2000) defines education as a weapon for combating ignorance, poverty and disease, as a bridge between confusion and comprehension, as a dam for conserving man’s store of civilization and for generating the power to move to greater civilization, as a means for transporting man from a state of intellectual subservience to a state of intellectual sovereignty. In a nutshell, education is all-round development of an individual, intellectually, morally and mentally, so that he will be useful to himself and the society he belongs.

It is assumed that brokenhomes retard the progress of those children from such background in that both parents are not on ground to direct and guide the child towards the achievement of educational goals. It is agreeable or believed that children from broken homes are more likely prone to poor academic performance. A child may become a victim of broken home as a result of divorce or separation of the parents. When this happens, this child is entrusted to other people that are different from his parents. This person is expected to play the role of a surrogate parents despite his/her commitment of his/her own children without any empirical evidence, it is very clear  that nobody will treat a child who is entrusted to his care the way he/she will treat his/her own child. By this token, the child is always confused and frustrated under the leadership style of step-father or step mother. The frustration of such a child knows no bound. At home under surrogate parents he is discriminated and suffers some psychological deprivations, he carried the same emotional frustration to the school. Instead of listening to the teacher and taking down notes, he is more often occupied with the intimidation, discrimination and deprivation he/she is facing at home. As such, he has little or no interest in the learning materials, as classes are ought to be attended and comprehensible in the course of subject taught and presented at school.

Apart from frustration, discouragement and deprivations, the child may also be malnourished and segregated by surrogate parent (i.e. mother) who feel that she is wasting the family resources in the child she did not give birth to; the child may lack the necessary school materials and in most cases, may grudgingly allow the child to be attending school while that child may not be given the necessary things that are vital for acquisition  of knowledge since he know that, He will be  punished by the teacher for lack of learning materials, hence, the child may resort to play truancy.

Since parenthood has been found to adversely affect the learning situation of human being particularly the children, that is to say, children who are reared in homes where parents are separated or divorced are most likely to be faced with sleep disturbance in class while learning become irritable, fearful, aggressive and withdrawn (Cole and Cole 1993, Van der Zanden 1980). Studies further confirm that children in one parent household not only do or perform poorly in school because they tend to lack self-control, but also become disruptive in the class rooms, instead of paying attention to what is being taught in class, they are busy disturbing others who are ready to learn. In addition, it is also reported that two years immediately after a mother’s marriage break up, the mother exercise less control over her children than  she did before (Hetherington, Cox and Cos, 1982).

The problems children from broken homes are facing with the resultant failure in school is a serious affair that calls for the attention of all and sundry including the government.

1.2       STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The family has enormous amount of influence on the education of the child both directly and indirectly. In the preschool or formative years of the child, the home transmit culture and knowledge to the child correcting him where he goes wrong and directing him in other various aspects of his life in the society.

However, broken homes are very common ranging. From voluntary separation, desertion, ejection, divorce etc. the problem therefore is that broken homes have really caused a setback in the education of the children born into these families, thereby affecting the academic performance  of these students.

1.3       PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The study is to examine the problems associated with broken homes and how it affects the education of children from such homes, it is hoped and believed that this study will enlighten teachers of the problems children from broken homes have to contend with,with a view to helping them adjust properly to learning situation.

The study is equally aimed at highlighting the unstable homes and its adverse effect on the education of children from such homes and to intimates parents with the problems associated with broken homes in order to minimize separation and divorces.

1.4       RESEARCH QUESTIONS

i.                    To what extent does broken home affect the academic achievement of student?

ii.                  How does maltreatment from step parents contribute to the students’ academic performance in school?

iii.                What are the significant differences in the average academic performance of students from broken homes and students from unbroken homes?

iv.                What are the problems associated with broken homes?

v.                  How can these problems be minimized?

1.5       SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Due to financial and time constraints the study is limited to selected schools in Abeokuta North Local Government Area of OgunState, the study is also limited to material resources available to the researcher during the course of the study.

1.6       SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

It is expected that the research work would serve as a reference to those who may carry out similar research in the future. The rate of marriage failure is on the increase in our modern society. As the saying goes “when two elephants fight on the grass, it is the grass that suffer? What becomes of children born to such a family is nobody’s concern. It is therefore pertinent that a timely study be carried out in order to give useful suggestions and recommendation to teachers on how to help such unfortunate children to learn properly in school so that they can come out with a good academic performance in school for themselves and be useful to the society as well.

As a matter of fact institution s like UNICEF, Ford foundation and others have shown genuine interest and concern for Western Children in similar conditions like those in Africa. The impact of these aforementioned organizations has not been felt in most parts of Nigeria as a nation. It is therefore necessary that a radically guided research of this nature be carried out in this part of the world.

This dearth of search is also the rational for this study in order to expose the problems of the broken homes and a resultant consequence of the education of children from such homes. It will help in finding solution to problems identified.

Lastly, it will expose teachers to the problems discussed and its effects on education, with a view to working out modality of helping students from such background to learn better.

1.7       DEFINITION OF TERMS

Marriage: it is the legal relationship between a husband and wife

Home: the house or apartment that one lives in, especially with your family

Learning: a relatively pertinent to permanent change in the behavior of an individual as result the learning.

Performance: This is the ability to successfully carry out a given task following instructions.

Standard: This concept is used in the research to mean the expected level of quality or specified level of academic excellence and its attainment in the system.

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