CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Education, in its broadest sense, is a process designed to inculcate knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to enable individuals to cope effectively with their environment. Its primary purpose is to foster and promote the fullest individual self-realization for all people. It is indispensable to normal living, without education the individual would be unqualified for group life. 1)According to Aremu (2000), education is the process of developing the capacities and potentials of the individuals as to prepare that individual to be successful in a specific society or culture.Notably, it is often said to be the powerful tool for developing intellectual abilities, shaping cultural attributes, acquiring knowledge and skills as well as a favourable tool to move a nation towards developing it scientific and technological culture.
Achieving this goal requires understanding of commitment to the proposition that education is a primary instrument for social and economic advancement of human welfare (Verma, 1997). From this perspective, education is serving primarily as an individual development function. Academic performance refers to the level of performance in school, accomplishment or success in school”. However, academic performance is the core of educational growth (Aremu & Oluwole, 2001). Jansen (2004) defined academic performance as the process of developing the capacities and potentials of the individual student so as to prepare that individual to be successful in a specific society or culture. From this perspective, education is serving primarily as an individual development functions. It is important to keep in mind that academic performance may largely be a function of the context in which it takes place, and therefore the necessary abilities may also vary according to the context. In this regard it may be concluded that the concept, meaning and criteria of academic success may also vary according to the context in which it is found. The educational system is vital for every country in the world and Nigeria is no exception; a strong and effective education system can help boost the development of any country, as academic performance in Nigeria most especially at the secondary school level has been largely associated with many factors in literature. These include; school environment, lack of learning resources as well as home environment factors (Adeagbe, 2004; Aremu & Oluwole, 2001). Padilla & Gonzalez (2001) and Aremu & Sokan (2003) also reported tremendous academic failures among students and some have tried to find the reasons behind the alarming rate of failures. Thus, the problem of under-achievement of students’ at school has a long history in educational psychological research. Consequently, improving student academic achievement had long been an extremely complicated and vexing problem for school systems and education policy makers. Among the many factors that influence student’s achievement are two main factors which is the home environment of the child and the school environment. The home environment means that family background of the child, which includes all the human and material resources present in the home that affects child’s living such as the parent’s level of education, occupation, social-economic status and the socializing facilities available in the house. Thus the home is the basic in situation for providing the child’s primary socialization and laying the educational foundation for the child upon which the other agents of socialization build. As a result of the great need for training of the young people, the government has come into guide and helps the home and schools this great task by providing the national policy on education which contains the national objectives for education. The school environment also called school plant, which refers to the physical facilities available in the school such as the school site, the buildings, equipment, machinery, furniture, electrical and water supply infrastructure, could simply be likened to the capital in an industrial setting. They are very necessary to ensure the eectiveness and eiciency of the system. A simple aesthetic exterior suggestive of the purpose for which the buildings are used could be a pride to the students and could have an impressive influence on the academic performance of the students. Though number of studies have been carried out to identify the factors that aect the academic performance of students in a number of educational institutions worldwide. Most of these studies focus on three elements that intertwine, that is, parents (family causal factors), teachers (academic causal factors), and students (personal causal factors), the aim of this research is therefore to find out the influence of home and school environment on the academic performance of students.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Over the past years, concerns have been raised about the poor academic performance of students by parents and the community. Dierent factors is attributed the cause of poor academic performance among secondary school students, combination of factors relating to the school environment such as limited teaching and learning materials (TLMs), inadequate textbooks and less professionally trained teachers. Other teacher factors include lateness to school; incidence of absenteeism, use of the local language in teaching, inability to complete the syllabi, less interest in children’s understanding of lesson and not being hardworking. The characteristics of the students such as absenteeism and regularity in school, truancy, use of local language in the classroom, lack of interest and joy in the teacher’s lessons and little help with studies at home to also be the cause of poor academic performance among secondary school students. Parental support variables also cause pupils to perform poorly academically were their inability to provide breakfast, textbooks and basic school needs, less interaction with children’s teachers and less involvement in the Parent Teacher Association (PTA).
