CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Financial Accounting is an indispensible field of study in education. It is a subject that is very essential for business, it helps both profit and non -profit organization. Financial Accounting is a subject that involves the process of recording, interpreting and communicating financial data of an organization to the end users in order to make useful economic decisions.
The new policy on education (2004) is designed to be functional, practical and quantitative. This is expected to reduce the more paper work system associated with the former system of education and which led to the mass unemployment. This ne policy on education emphasized vocational education and was formulated by Nigerians to direct the nation towards technological and economic development and cultural renewal. An overview of financial accounting shows that it involves a lot of human cognitive domain i.e. an individual is expected to be intellectually sound and up to the task of performing calculation and must be able to translate word problems into calculable state i.e. figures.
This is a fundamental characteristics of a related subject Mathematics. In other words, this is a saying that financial accounting has a linkage with mathematics but not all students are good in this particular aspect. Hence, financial accounting as it involve calculation with indeed is cumbersome also involves own theoretical aspect. This on the other hand, is the note aspect. Since most student s find it difficult to perform to expectation in the calculation aspect, then they can easily boost their performance in the note aspect because they believe it is easy to cram note unlike calculations, However, students who have outlined their counterparts in the calculation area, research has shown that it is as a result of the permanent format and process that is embedded in the subject that has really helped them, so they find it interesting in cramming both the note aspect and the mathematical aspect. But one question to be asked is this, how long will cramming help the students? What if the students are called upon to teach their colleagues, will they not fumble? This question has aroused the interest of the researcher to embark on a research on developing effective strategies to improve the student’s academic performance in financial accounting.
Since this study i.e. discipline focuses on preparing the students on how to forge a head in their academic life at both the tertiary level and professional level, there is need to look at how their performance can be improved so as to make them relevant in their field and in other field of study. Due to the vital role that the knowledge and understanding of financial accounting is playing in the society, there is need to improve on its standard.Therefore, this project is carried out with the aim of developing strategies that would help students improve their academic performance in financial accounting as a subject or course of study.
The Federal Republic of Nigeria (2004) stated that the broad goal of the secondary school education is to prepare individuals for useful living within the society and higher education. To achieve these objectives, secondary school education in Nigeria has six years duration given in two stages, three years of junior secondary school followed by three years of senior secondary school. The curriculum designed for senior secondary school is comprehensive and broad based, aims at bordering students knowledge and outlook. Subject offered in senior secondary school are in three groups core subject, vocational subject and non vocation subject acts, one of the vocational subject is financial accounting. Financial accounting falls under the vocational area and therefore a discipline that is very essential for business. It helps both profit and non -profit making organization. This is because it helps the organization to make policies which helps and enhance expansion.
It also assesses the efficiency of management to making decision relating to further investment. It prospectors in assessing the efficiency of the management and provide information which assist parties outside organization to make objective judgment about the organization. However, at the secondary school level, the objective of teaching this subject is to provide students with the basic method of processing data to develop manipulation skills and provide knowledge for career advancement in accounting so as to develop an economic understanding of business vocabulary, to help students develop and understand basic accounting concepts and principles. In summary, to be self reliant. As a result of this, it has been noted by some educational scholars in this discipline that students needs to improve themselves in order to achieve the set goals as identified above.