Influence Of Student Support Services On Students’ Academic Performance
[A CASE STUDY OF COLLEGE OF EDUCATION IKERE EKITI, EKITI STATE]

Student support services are provided in order to encourage positive thinking and actions that would compliment the attainment of their academic pursuit and choices of future career among the students. The importance of student support services cannot be over-emphasized in the socio-economic life of the student. Those services are provided to find out student problems   so as to proffer appreciable solution to the problems. The Guidance and counselling services are the core–service of the students support services.
    Also, a well equipped clinic will equally contribute to the health care of the students as it will help to solve their health problems. Adequate provision of water and electricity will enhance their wellbeing on campus, provision of catering services and accommodation is of great importance to the students.
If the above services and other services are satisfactorily provided, the academic performance of the students will yield positive result, it will also influence positive response from the students in terms of their performance. That is, their performance would be in agreement with the norms of the services provided by the institution. Inadequate provision of the above services might lead to poor academic performance and unruly behaviour among the students, such as riot, unhealthy demonstration, destruction of school properties, break down of law and order thereby obstructing academic learning, hence leading to the closure of the school.
It can therefore be deduced that adequate provision of student support services plays a vital role in any higher institution as it helps to complement effective teaching and learning as well as students welfare on the campus. It is in the light of this, that this study seeks to examine student support services and its influence on academic performance of the students in College of Education, Ikere-Ekiti.
Statement of the Problem
    Students of tertiary institutions in Nigeria are facing myriad of problems of which students in College of Education Ikere-Ekiti are also included. The problems range from poor or irregular water supply, inadequate hostel accommodation, poorly equipped school library to poorly equipped health centre.
Similarly, irregular water supply is one of the major problems faced by the students of college of education Ikere- Ekiti. During the dry season especially, most of the student will have to wake as early as 4 0’ clock in the morning and go into the town to fetch water, while they were suppose to be awake to read their books. Because of the daily stress most of them pass through in search for water, it becomes almost impossible for many of them not to be weak and lack concentration in the class during lectures and consequently this have negatively affected their academic performances.
    However, it has also been asserted that inadequate hostel accommodation is one of the causes of poor performances among the students of College of Education Ikere-Ekiti. This was further proven when some students in the same institution attested that seven or eight of them were swaddled in a room meant for four students. Consequently, this unhealthy situation has caused catalogues of misunderstanding among the students, between the students and the school management and also leads to students unrest and rioting in the school which in turn have aborted their aims of enrolling in the same institution and their performances is nothing to write home about.
    Furthermore, poor transportation services provided to the students have also affected their academic performances negatively. This is because the buses provided to convey the students to the school are inadequate, while most of them that live off campus complained bitterly that they do trek more than one hour every day before they could get to the lecture rooms and the service they paid for were not adequately provided to them.
     Poor electricity supply is another bottleneck that have affected  academic performances of the students of College of Education Ikere-Ekiti. Since the students are faced with constant epileptic power supply and most of them cannot afford to buy kerosene lamps, they are only left with the option of studying in the day time, while they use the whole night to sleep when they were suppose to be awake to read their books.
    Not only that, the school library that is poorly furnished has immensely affected the academic performances of the students of College of Education Ikere-Ekiti, this is because enviable materials which the students needs to get solid or vital information for research during and after school examination and also for research project are not adequately provided. Hence, the students are left alone to wonder about in search for such materials and in most cases they do not get them.