CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Polygamy represents expanded family studies that are based on marriage involving a husband with two or more wives interestedly; polygamy is legally and widely practiced in 850 societies across the globe.
In the last two decades, polygamy has been the focus of significant growth in public political and academic awareness. This form of marital structure has effect on behavioural, emotional and academic adjustment of children.
Psychologist and educationist are consciously emphasizing that there are dear evidence to the fact that pupils achievement in schools are partly affected by their family background. It is a general assumption that the types of family in which a child belong to or evolved from have effect on pupil’s academic performance.
The effect of polygamous on pupils’ academic performance has attracted the attention of schools and authorities. This is because the behaviour of the child in school or outside is a reflection of his or her home where he or she comes from.
In Nigeria today there are many problem on academic performance of pupils in school because there is no effective teaching in school and also the parcential background or home in which a child comes from have great or adverse impact on the pupils and this is due to the fact that academic performance has not be tailored and mastered from the beginning.
However Dempsey et al opined that the primary environment of the pupils the home and it stand to exert tremendous impact on pupil’s achievement. In a study conducted on the effects of family structure and parenthood on the academic performance of Nigeria pupils. Uwaifo (2008) found significant different between the academic performance of pupils from single parent and these from two parent structure. Uwaifo (2008) also noted that the school is responsible for the experiences that make up the individuals life during school periods. Indeed parent involvement and individual’s experiences at home play tremendous roles in building the personality of the child and making the child what he is. Furthermore, many pupils have been hindered from reading their optimum level in academic pursuit due to some negative factors arisen from home. These include lack of parental encouragement, lack of conductive environment, poor finance and housing, poor feeding, ill-health and lack of interest on the part of pupils. Pupils who school needs (physical and emotional) are not provided for at home may forever remain under achiever and this could affect the general development. Effect of poor academic performance during school years often carry over to the childhood with a higher proportion of school dropouts, behavioural problems and even delinquency among their population.
Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the effect of polygamy on the academic performance of pupils using Ugelle primary school as a cause study. The number of children in polygamous home are likely to increase company to that of a single parent. Therefore parents in polygamy home is not as close to their children when it comes to monitoring their academic performance. To bridge the gap between these families, parent should devoted more of their time to the upholding of their children by providing academic imperative like textbooks, good nutrition, writing material e.t.c. pay less attention to their business or other activities. The government should focus attention on providing qualitative education to citizens. Adequate facilities and material should be made available in schools for the benefit of all pupils from monogamous, polygamous, single-parent families. Family background as primary and social agent has important role to play in child academic performance. Family size type and parent academic background have major role to play in child upbringing especially in third world country. Family background is the foundation for children development a family is refers to group of people knitted together by blood ties on marriage bond. In a large family, a child may not be given maximum attention especially in his academic. The issue of home works payment of school fees, attending parent teacher association and many more may not be convenient for the parent as they have to cater for many children.
Polygamous home make it competitive for their children to contest for limited resources available and parents affection in a situation whereby a man marries two or more wives at a time, it tends to unequal treatment to children, jealousy and survival for the fittest for a child to succeed in life he has to struggle which may be detrimental to his academic performance. The home is the premier agent of education to the child, therefore the way he lives the food he eats and his life style is influence by the hope. The type of family system the child is exposed to greatly influence his academic achievement in schools. Similarly, certain juvenile delinquent behaviour such as stealing, truancy and lying, appear to have their root in parent rejection and insecurity.