COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MALE AND FEMALE STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH AND MATHEMATICS (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
- INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Students’ poor performance in Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by both the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and the National Examination Council (NECO) (Eze, 2011) is really disturbing especially that educationists now emphasis much on educational accountability. It is worthwhile to reiterate on the role and function of English language and mathematics in Nigeria as that which warrants concern when students’ performance in it is poor. English language is used as the medium of instruction and in learning other subjects in all Nigerian educational institutions. Equally too, no student is qualified for admission into the Nigerian universities and other tertiary institutions without scoring a credit pass in it in addition to other four subjects in the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and the National Examination Council (NECO). One other serious issue worthy of note at this point of discourse is that, in Nigeria today, during the placement of students into either schools or classrooms to enhance better performance, the factors mostly considered are ability, aptitude, occupation or trade or career choice, science or arts inclination but always at the exclusion of gender streaming factor. Where and when gender comes to mind, it is an haphazard exercise. It is neither based on policy guideline or research report nor bearing in mind academic performance benefit but on grounds of morality or religious injunctions or obligations. Secondly, this study wasmotivated by issues related to gender equity in education especially in northern Nigeria despite several declarations and provision of legislative tools and other support by powerful international bodies such as UNICEF, World Bank, UNESCO etcetera on this issue. These include the inequity between female and male educational opportunities, low level of enrollment, alarming withdrawal rate resulting in low completion rate, poor or lack of attention and support for the girl-child education, unequal attention given to males and females students especially in coeducational classrooms among others. In addition, the assertion that females have better aptitude and competence in learning language than their male counterparts and the availability of controversial and inconsistency of results of studies on the academic performance of both female and male students’ performance when they are streamed according to gender is academically challenging to have prompted this study. Positive study results on gender streaming include those by Lee and Lockheed (1990); Mallam (1996), Kurumeh,Igyu and Mohammed(2013); Bosire, Mondohand Barmao, (2008); Sax, (2007) etc and unfavorable study results include those of Rowe (2008); Oludipe (2012); Kang’ahi, (2012); Pahlke, E., Hyde, J. S. Allison, C. M. (2014) etc. Therefore, this study investigated the impact of gender streaming on male students’ performance in English language at the senior secondary school level in Niger State. The finding is aimed at curbing the high rate of students’ failure in English language in West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO) Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations in Niger State, Nigeria when implemented.
Mukhtar and Iliyasu (2006) were on the view that “in most mathematics and mathematics related fields, there tend to be more male than females. For instance when we look at the ancient mathematicians including; Pythagoras, Thales, Euclid and Pascal, all of them were men’’. However, one begins to ask on the possible causes of such imbalance between male and female could it be female’s brain are weaker than those of males? According to Blasser (2007) “girls and boys start equal in mathematics and science performance in school, they appear to do equally well in both subject in elementary schools. Then some girls begin to lose interest in mathematics and science around the age of twelve. These girls then drop out from Mathematics Classes often forever closing the door on many career opportunities’’.
