CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Since the inception of the department of school of sciences, it has been granting admission to a number of students on a yearly basis into various programmes, the department holds one of the larger numbers of students that are admitted yearly into the college of education. This is so because of the premium and the relevance of the useful education, which is provided by the school of science. Unfortunately however, there have been reports from various quarters expressing the view of poor performance among the first year students of school of science.
The continuous un-impressive performance of the first year students of the school of science therefore become a matter of concern, especially when the government of the day in our little measure has invested so much in science and technology to make sure it gets to a high esteem. Thus the government will not be attained if performance by first year students continuous on the downward trend.
Infact, the economic effect of student’s failure will be better seen when considered in relation to a society like Nigeria that is still developing and hopes for a free education at all level for its citizens when a first year students start his academic career with poor performance, the journey becomes very tough. If such a students continues without any significant positive change in performance, he/she will certainly end up with a class of degree that will place him/her nowhere. Nwagwu (2000) identified a number of factors influencing academic performance of students or educational wastage. He saw the inability of poor families to provide money for books and other school materials. He said that free education could not prevent students from failing on account of financial handicap. After all, the government will not be responsible for things like clothing and feeding. According to recent research, it has been seen that a number of factors influence academic performance of first year students. To determine these a preliminary interview was carried out by the researcher on some education, students revealed that a number of students do not have interest being in college of Education due to various reasons adduced by them. The question now is, how did they come into an education system or programme? And what are the parameters used in admitting students? It has also been observed that universities rejected many because they performed below average. It therefore becomes very obvious that the performance of the first year students in general are those which are either mediocre level.