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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Success in education is measured by the academic performance over the years. Education as a social enterprise has over the centuries defied one objective definition because its main concern is with man, how to form and shape the ideal person for the society. Education means enabling the mind to find out the ultimate truth which emancipates us from the bondage of the dust and gives us the wealth, not of things but of inner light, notof power but of love, making the truth its own and giving expression to it (Aggarwal 2005). Education from the point of view is the process of sporting out or finding and developing all the powers in the child so that he or she becomes a useful member of the society and lead a life satisfying to himself and the society he or she belongs to, Socrates ones said knowledge is power by which things are done therefore one who has knowledge could not be better than virtuous. A Greek poets puts this across, As a field, however fertile cannot be fruitful without cultivation, neither can a man without learning if a field however fertile cannot be fruitful without cultivation, so applies to man this pre supposes that a child enrolled in school can only have a sound mind to study and attain good grades when the necessary needs of the child has been given to him on her. It is the responsibility of the family to provide all the needed support being it physical or spiritual to help in the upbringing of the child. There is a saying that, learning does take place in a sound body and a sound mind. It is in this manner that this research would like to delve into families to find out their background influence on academic performance. According to Bell (2000), parents, devoted a lot of resources to their children because they believed good academic performance will provide a stable future for them. Also Wilkins (2000) opines that many educational authorities have sought to find out reasons for the downward trend in the academic performance of pupils.Many factors and reasons have been given as being responsible for continuous falling standard in the academic performance of our present educational system. These include; attitude of teachers to work, lack of seriousness on the part of students, the dwindled economy and to some extent the increasing degeneration ofmoral system.  Despite all possible efforts put forward by various governments and voluntary agencies to curb these trends, the country is yet to witness the rise it desires to see in education. The saddest irony of it all is that we have improved the teaching facilities and equipment (with infrastructures) and more qualified, experienced teachers now than the past. Many researchers and scientist agree that success at schools is associated with social background factors (Giddens), 1997) as these factors affect your children cognitive skills.Disadvantage children (children with poor social background) start school with significantly lower cognitive skills than their more advantage peers. Experience has shown that among the secondary school students’ there exist some differences which influence students’ academic performance, such as some students’ being able to pay their school fees promptly, while  others  were often sent away for nonpayment of school fees, some students have  problem with the provision of school uniform but others were not. Likewise, some students were motivated by their parents through the provision of educational materials like text books and exercise books, others were not. Whereas as some students’ come to school properly feed, otherswere not. One then wonders whether influence of family background had played a role in these issues. Motivation is most needed in order to perform more efficiently in their area of endeavor.When certain factors are eminent in a child’s background, it is clear that they will be motivated and driven towards their academic goals.Family serve as model to the child as he or she copies from each of them Eyake, (1997). Adeyem (1977) that if the house fails to provide the child with the necessary equipment to fit him/her into his proper placein the society and guided properly for his/ her future career, then the child is damaged. Analysis of the percentage of school dropout today entails that, such students are usually from broken homes, wiring polygamous family or with other socially related problems. The agrarian and large families have accounted for polygamous life of people. The large the size of the family the more economic and other social responsibility the parents bring upon themselves. Most often than not, the educational performance of students from such family suffers serious setback. This is because such parents might not be able to afford the cost funding education for the children. Furthermore economic position of parents is one of major factors that can influence greatly the educational upbringing of child. In most families, either or none of parents may be earning income sufficient enough to sustain the family, faced with malnutrition and other emotional and (1990) adds that a low income family with plenty of feeding problems may produce children who’s physical and mental development poses real challenges the schools effect at optimum development of the child.

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