CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Environment according to Denek, described someone who is ready and able to learn and also wants to learn, if this same person is kept in a room without books, pictures and has no one to talk to, such a person might not learn effectively. Thus, for learning to take place and the performance of students be enhanced, the school surrounding must be stimulating and encouraging. The school environment must be inviting or welcoming, conducive and accommodating for adequate and effective learning to take place.
According to Grant (1985), school buildings should be a suitable building furnished and well equipped for habitation. As dilapidating buildings, lacking mental stimulating facilities that are characterized with low or no seating arrangement will also be destructive to students academic achievement.
It has been proved that students that are taught in stimulating environment with laboratory equipment, rich instructional aids, pictures and are allowed to demonstrate using their functional peripheral nerves like eyes, hands and sense of taste performed better than those trained under theoretical and canopy of abstraction.
Alban (1971) believes that each class should have a separate area of quite lesson. According to him, it will be difficult for the students to concentrate if they can hear what is happening in another class. And that each room should be large enough for the students to sit on desks when necessary and yet leave a good space between desks so that the teacher can easily reach the students to give individual help.
Bowers and Burkett (1987) found that improper maintenance of fixtures can lead to low academic performance of students in a school setting and it can lead to misinterpretation of written words especially on the chalkboard.
Thus, teaching and learning should be done under an organized, planned and fortified environment with learning instructional aids to stimulate students sense of conception, perception and concentration in order to facilitate systematic understanding and requisition of knowledge in them.
More also Dunn (1985) insisted that the lighting of a school should be considered an active element of the total educational environment. He found that good lighting contributes significantly to the aesthetics and psychological character of the learning space, while inappropriate illumination levels abuse the human eyes and leave unfortunate physiological consequences on students academic performance.
Boekaert (1993) had indicated that a supportive/aesthetic academic setting is considered by students as an extension of their personal resources and it serves to reduce anxiety and negative effect that can arise in their performance.
Bandural (1997) in support believe that good aesthetic environment foster psychological growth that contributes to the quality of life beyond the vocational domain.
It is well accepted in the scientific community that prolonged exposure to high intensity noise in community or school setting is often harmful to the health and behaviour of large segments of the exposed population or students. This in turn reduces students concentration or conceptual focus to learning.
Evans and Martin (1991) discovered in their findings that there are significant increases in blood pressure associated with students in schools near to noisy urban streets, market and around airport. Students in such noisy environment are often associated with deficits in mental concentration, making more errors on difficult task and greater likelihood of giving up on tasks before the time allocated has expired. In effect, therefore, the location of schools is of critical importance.
Hence, Sprinthall (1987) says markets and garages located near school have always pose a threats to students.Therefore, for an effective learning and high academic performance, schools in both rural and sub-urban and urban areas should be located off zones, characterized with smoke/gas pollution and market centres.