CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Marriage is a part of our everyday life since it creates new rights, duties, and social relationships not just between couples but also between spouses’ relatives. Marriage is the union of a man and a woman in order for them to become husband and wife. It’s also a social institution that helps to form the family. (According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary). Married couples are meant to live together until one or both of them dies, yet there are cases where couples live apart due to misunderstandings, not because their spouse was moved by employment to a distant place or because of natural disasters (Matthew, 1999). They formally split in a court of law, which is referred to as “divorce.” Divorce is the legal dissolution of a lawful marriage. If a marriage is not valid when contacted, no divorce can be granted because there was never a marriage (Amato, 1995). The different elements that predispose marital instability are just a result of marital misery. Divorce is a mechanism for cheating with the pressure and problem inevitably caused by marriage because there would be no divorce if husband and wife were different individuals and their actions were important to each other. With this view, divorce is a mechanism for cheating with the pressure and problem inevitably caused by marriage because there would be no divorce if marriage did not exist (Janet, 2001). When just one partner is responsible for the raising of a marital union’s child/children, divorce or marriage failure is clear (Mark, 2002). This causes the child’s/growth children’s to be dysfunctional since the duties that should be shared between two individuals are assumed by one person, and the roles that should be played by two persons are assumed by one person, requiring the child’s upbringing to be balanced (Paul, 2001). Marriage failure, often known as divorce, is one of the most frequent difficulties in today’s Nigeria. Marriages are failing at such a high rate that two out of every six marriages are said to have failed in recent years. (From The Punch, 5 May 2004).
Many reasons have been identified as contributing to this social threat, one of which is early marriage. When individuals marry before they are mature, they lack the fundamental understanding required to live together productively, which invariably leads to marriage breakdown and collapse (Chijioke, 1997). Divorce or marital failure has a variety of consequences on children; the impact of parental divorce on children is dependent on circumstances such as the child’s age, the family’s financial situation, and so on. When a kid is extremely young or in adolescent, divorce has an impact on the child’s age. Adolescence is a transitional stage between childhood and adulthood. During this time, a person is considered as neither a kid nor an adult (Uzi, 2000). Adolescents are characterized by emotional instability and hyperactivity, according to Hall (1999), which causes them to encounter storms or obstacles during their growth stage. Is divorce detrimental to children has been one of the most often asked questions concerning family life over the last two decades (Jude, 2001). Although this may appear to be a critical concern, I believe it is time to focus on a more pressing issue: what are the variables in divorced homes that lead to children’s troubles and what are the ones that support children’s adaptation? Because there is so much talk about divorce and its effects on children, the research is aimed at teachers to gather their thoughts on the impact of divorce on a child’s academic achievement (Gedi, 2003).
1.2Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Divorce has become a cankerworm that has infiltrated our culture and has a variety of impacts on children’s academic achievement (Matip, 2003). Against this backdrop, the goal of this study is to learn what instructors think about the impact of divorce on a child’s academic achievement.
1.3Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The goal of the study is to evaluate the view of teachers on the effect of divorce on the academic performance of children in primary schools in Onna local government area of Akwa ibom State.
Specifically the study seek to examine
i. Possible causes of divorce.
ii. Effect of divorce on the academic performance of children
iii. Others possible effect or divorces on student
iv. Teachers perceptions on the effect of divorce on the academic performance of children.
1.4Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â RESEARCH QUESTIONS
i. What are the Possible causes of divorce?S
ii.What are Effect of divorce on the academic performance of children
iii. What are  possible effect of  divorces on student?
iv. What are the perceptions on the effect of divorce on the academic performance of children?
