CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Educational practitioners and others have recently expressed concern about the country’s decreasing educational quality. These calls inspired the current federal government’s educational reforms. The elementary school is the foundation of all formal education systems worldwide. The primary purpose of a school as an educational institution is to provide instruction and learning. Educational goals, diversified people, curriculum, knowledge, physical facilities, resources, students, financing, and so on are all inputs into the school system with the purpose of creating well-equipped outputs.
The material elements that enable successful teaching and learning in schools are referred to as school facilities. Castalsi (1971) characterized them as educational resources that allow a skilled teacher to attain a degree of instructional efficacy that significantly surpasses what is feasible when they are not available. Osahon (2001), citing Ogbodo (1996), defines educational facilities as “material objects that enhance teaching and learning activities in the school.” Some of the causes for the lack of facilities and equipment in Nigerian schools have been a rapid increase in enrolment of children in schools and a reduction in local funding for schools. Educational facilities, by definition, have been favorably associated with students’ academic achievement and educational efficiency (Osahon, 1994). To achieve the educational goals of the school and the school system, funding and facilities for the different activities of the school program as well as extracurricular activities are necessary. 1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Students and instructors both require amenities such as libraries, science resource rooms, safe drinking water, restrooms, labs, well-maintained roads connecting schools, and security for teaching and learning. Although rural electrification benefits the host communities where primary schools are located, it does not help the primary schools. Because of insufficient upkeep, most of the school buildings are in a dreadful state of disrepair; our public structures and amenities have entirely fallen and are in ruins. Arisi (2002) stressed that inadequate classroom spaces have resulted in over-crowding in schools.Crowded classrooms not only make it difficult for pupils to concentrate on their studies, but they also limit the amount of time teachers can devote to creative teaching techniques such as cooperative learning and group work, or to teaching anything more than the absolute minimum of essential information. Osahon (2001) opined that many primary and secondary schools were built long time ago by both government and church missionaries. Hence, most of the buildings, roof-tops, desks, chairs, tables, floors, etc., have become extremely bad.
Pitiably, the depreciation of school physical structures and infrastructures, on the other hand, is determined by a variety of factors such as the quality of the initial construction and materials, as well as the quality of maintenance to accommodate effective teaching and learning for academic performance of students in public primary schools. Therefore is against this backdrop that this study seeks to examine the implication of inadequate infrastructural facilities on the academic performance of pupils in public primary schools”.
