CHAPER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Over the years, the nation has been experiencing a drastic fall in the academic performance of pupils and students at the various level of education. Scholars of different school of though has attributed this ugly trend to many factor such as poor teaching methodology, inadequate instructional facilities and a lot more from the look of things, these scholars seems to heap the blames either on the student or the teachers who most times are not actually the immediate causes.
However, a chose observation reveals that this trend has an undeniable relationship with one parental background in terms of their socio-economic status. Only recently the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria president Olusegun Obasenjo in his monthly presidential media chat, held in October 2003, cried out in regards to the poor academic situation terms that our—-” graduates are fast becoming more of half baked graduated—” what a mess.
Meanwhile, as this scenario continues to thrive, many more meaningful individuals both from the academic and non-academic field of the society not only shares their grievances they also point accusing fingers towards the teachers and the students. They give little or no attention to the student’s socio-economic background, which from act appearances seem to be one fundamental cause of poor academic performance in school.
We have it on records that a child spends more time at home with his or her parents than he or she spends in school. This makes the home of greater influence in this regard. Little or no wonder it is said ”charity begins at home”
Be that as it may, we cannot over labour the fact that poor performance of a country’s citizens at various level of education has a way of tarnishing or beautifying that countries image.
Considering the magnitude of this problem, it therefore becomes very expedient that this project be carried out as it is hoped that it will help in savaging the problem or situation as it were, to a very reasonable extent.
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
It is almost becoming a common and accepted knowledge those poor performances of student in our school is due to the inadequacies of teachers or student non-challant attitude to study. This is purely a wrong assumption that needs an investigation as we cannot afford to loss sight of the drastic effect that ones parental background have on the academic performance of the child.
It is in cognisance of this that the following questions become very important.
1. What role does the socio-economic position of parent’s play in the academic performance of the child?
2. To what extent does the level of education of parents affect the academic performance of pupils
3. Is there any relationship between living condition at home and academic performance of pupils?
4. How does the family structure in terms of monogamy, polygamy and size affect the academic achievement of student
5. How far does the attitude of parents and guidance affect the academic performance of students?