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The Social Problems And Academic Performance Of Students In Selected Secondary Schools
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the study
Social
problems are issues happenings which are frequently occurring in the
society in recent times. They are the issues that affect everybody in
the society. The issues are of great concern to both the young and
adults. They are not personal or individualized issues but general
issues and as such require general solution. Some of the social issues
that pervade the length and breadth of our country such as corruption,
social inequality, ethnicity, limited resources, poverty, criminality,
and other socio-economic crises have manifested in different dimensions
in secondary school levels of our education system and appear to be
taking alarming proportions. It is important to consider the effect
social problems have on students’ academic performance. Although several
socio-economic and psychological variables like hard work and
discipline, family income, parent’s education, ability, interest and
aptitude have been identified to impact on academic performance, often
lost in this inquiry, however, is consideration of adolescent biological
age, school entry age, cult activities, examination malpractice,
truancy/ deviancy and late-coming to school which are some of the social
issues happening in secondary school students. The relative lack of
attention to these prevalent social problems in secondary schools is
unfortunate given the academic and behavioural performance problems
noticeable in our country.
First, adolescents’ age has been
identified as identity crises. They are faced with so many questions
about life ‘what’,’ how’, ‘where’ and ‘when’. They are anxious to get
quick result; a situation that exposes them to different dangers. Our
mass media are filled with different reports of social evils perpetrated
by adolescent students in schools. Equally, school entry age may be a
cause or benefit to child’s education. In this way, parents’
socio-economic development dictates the time a child will be exposed to
learning in school. Research findings on the relationship between school
entry age and academic performance are in mix. There is a need to
strike a balance between these mixed results.
Second, cult activities
among secondary school students were a thing unheard of in recent past.
Today cultism has taken a center stage in the secondary schools. When
cults strike, chances are that there is some disruption in the stability
of the academic calendars (Olusakin, 2004). Students who are not
serious with their academic work, whose bulk are found (if not all) in
the secret cults, usually precipitate confusion capable of leading the
closure of schools. The cultist disturbs the peace of the academic
environment through their violent activities. The violent activities
that happened at secondary schools in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State and
Adamawa State in 2012 were reported in the daily Newspapers (Nation
Newspaper, 2012; the Nigerian Tribune, 2012). This situation may lead to
closure of schools thereby keeping students home for very long time
which may affect their education. Some of the cultist when caught may
face suspension or outright dismissal from schools. Whatever may be the
case, cultism among students in secondary schools is necessary evil that
affect students’ outcomes in schools since those who engage in it pay
less attention to reading and studying in schools.
Third, students
get involved in examination malpractice because of their desire to get
best scores without the corresponding efforts in preparation. Corruption
in private and public places and the twin sister, Nigeria orientations
on certificate have not helped matter. Every high school student knows
that examination malpractice is evil and corrupt, but many of them still
get involved. Today, the situation is so bad that some parents,
teachers, proprietors / proprietresses, and examination officials, who
should champion the campaign against examination malpractice, are also
aiding it. In any case, students are less likely to adhere to formal
examination regulations where they perceive that rewards are based on
personal rather than professional criteria, where they perceive
widespread corruption in national and local government than in societies
where high levels of integrity are perceived to prevail (Okolie, 2004).
Third,
it is not uncommon to see students reacting aggressively when teachers
try to control them when they make noise and distract other students in
class. In similar vein, rape or sexual promiscuity, arson and wanton
destructions of buildings and properties and copying of foreign ways of
life seem to be the way of lives of many adolescent students. It should
be borne in mind that when students set buildings ablaze and destroy
properties, the resultant effect is the closing of the school. Hence,
deviant and delinquent activities among secondary school students are
social issues prevalent in school that have become so rampant. This
affects students’ learning and invariably the academic performance.
Four,
the situation in our secondary schools regarding the issue of
absenteeism and truancy is pathetic. Absenteeism and truancy are
presently major problems facing our schools, and the damaging effects to
students’ academic performances have largely been overlooked.
However,
academic performance in the context of this study is students’ ability
to do well, fairly or poorly in an examination. The evaluation for
determining students’ academic performance is carried out through
various forms of standardized tests and examination. It is worthy of
mention that academic performance, including academic failure is often
viewed in narrow terms, as an individual behavior limited to the early
life course. In essence, academic performance has implications that
play out across life stages and on multiple levels. It is pointed out
that academic struggles predict individual’s short-term problem behavior
and dropout, and can derail educational and occupational trajectories
of well into adulthood. It can also create disorder and undermine the
general mission of schools, and more so, widespread academic failure has
influence on rates of fertility, mortality, marriage, and unemployment
through its relation to educational attainment and the development of
human capital (Egenti, 2005). Thus, what appears merely to be an aspect
of the adolescent experience actually has far-reaching consequences
across a variety of social phenomena. This further justifies the need to
examine how social problems among students are related to their
academic performance in secondary schools.
Furthermore, despite the
law put against examination malpractices and the teaching of Civic
Education, Social Studies and Christian Religion / Islamic Religion at
the junior and senior secondary schools in Nigeria in order to promote
good values among students, yet social issues in secondary schools still
persist. There is therefore, the need to continue making inquiry on
these problem areas among secondary school students to stem the tide of
circumstances.
Most undeniably, the present Nigeria generation has
been generation of youth restiveness and moral decadence, corruption,
arson and looting, kidnapping, and terrorism among others are on the
rise in deteriorated neighborhoods and large cities like Lagos. Student
participation in such activities is on a steady rise and poses a serious
threat to achieving our education objectives.
Undeniably, academic
and maladaptive behavior performance of students in the secondary
schools deserves a study of this nature. The impetus towards a research
in this direction is further reinforced by the trend in poor performance
of the secondary school students in their West African School
Certificate Examinations, and students’ emotional life. It therefore
becomes a major part of the educator’s responsibilities to be able to
identify sources of emotional stress in students to appropriate areas of
professional and adult guidance in school. It is against this
background information that this research seeks to examine the
relationship between social issues in school and students’ academic
performance in Mushin Local Government Area of Lagos State.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]The study basically examined the relationship between social problems in schools and academic performance of students in selected secondary schools in Mushin Local Government Area of Lagos State. Seven research objectives leading to seven research questions and hypotheses were stated to guide the study. A total number of 250 teachers were carefully selected from the entire population through the method of stratified and simple random strategy. The research design was descriptive survey in nature ... Continue reading---
