SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT AND STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

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SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT AND STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Environment of schools could be a factor that affects chemistry achievement. Ezeudu (2003) stated that schools environment means urban and rural schools. Environment is a particular place in relation to other areas (Quirk, 2003) Akpan (2008) indicated that schools in urban areas have electricity, water supply, more teachers more learning facilities and infrastructure. To support this Ezike (2001) stated that urban areas are those with high population density, high variety and beauty while rural areas are those with low population, subsistence mode of life, monotonous and burden.

Onah (2011), and Owoeye (2002) indicated that schools in the urban areas achieved more than schools in the rural areas in science subjects. Specifically Owoeye and Yara (2011) showed in their studies that schools in urban environments had better academic achievement than their rural counterpart in chemistry. Yet Ezeudu (2003), Bosede (2010) showed that environment has no effect on students’ academic achievement. These contradictory findings generated to the present study to see the effect of gender and environment on students’ achievement in secondary school chemistry in Technical Colleges in Osun state, Nigeria.

Educators, parents, and politicians are continuously searching for that magic solution that will reform our public education system and establish a flawless system of education for our youth, by providing them with a quality education Edwards, (2002). “The success of the school in carrying out its primary charge of educating and socializing students is contingent on students attending school regularly” (Smith, 1998, p.1). According to Smith (1998), attendance is a priority for educators. This study investigates attendance in the primary grades. The goal is to identify early indicators of poor attendance at the primary level in order to provide interventions that could have an impact on middle and high school students’ attendance.

School and home factors affects student attendance. The social status and educational level of parent influence school attendance. Geographical environment of school, students’ attitude towards school and subjects, inadequate supervision of students’ activities by teachers and parents and poor teaching methods, lack of facilities affects students’ school attendance (Oghuvbu 1999; Alio 2003: 66-69). Students developed negative attitude towards school resulting into poor attendance because of no employment of school leavers, repetition of class and insecurity (Okwelle 2003: 30-35). Students’ age, family commitments, change of jobs, change of working hours and health factors, students with greater motive, without conflict of interest are more regular in school (ChiuMochi 1993).

On the role of gender in child schooling, Okpupara and Chukwuone (2007) identified that female headed households are more likely to have higher attendance in school whereas educated fathers have strong impact in increasing the probability of child school attendance thanmothers. The study also revealed that school attendant of girls is significantly influenced by age whole age is not significant for boys. Technical college administrators and teacher in Osun state positively keep and utilizes effectively students records on attendance, because of the important of the attendance register in the control of discipline and promotion of academic achievement of students (Oghuvbu 2006).

On the importance of attendance register, Nwadiani (1994) stated that school head and teachers should have accurate information of all the activities in the school for effective and easy decision-making, aids educational grant procurement and also to satisfy legal requirement and continuous assessment.

The relationship between school environment and school attendance has been a perplexing one for educators. Studies have found that the physical environment, locality of school in rural or urban area, socio-economic status of the neighbourhood, ethnic environment of the school, overcrowded classrooms built near market centres, libraries, technical workshops, laboratories, school plant planning, among others, are all school environmental variables that significantly affect school attendance (Adewuyi, 2002; Ahmed, 2003; and Ijeoma, 2007)

School attendance in this context refers to the extent to which schools are able to accomplish their pre-determined objectives. School attendance transcends beyond students passing final examinations. It also encompasses students’ attainment in other domains of learning (the affective and the psychomotor domains). According to Bandele (2002), these other domains, apart from having influence on the cognitive achievement, also make the beneficiary of the education system live a fulfilled life and contribute meaningfully to the development of the society.

School attendance research started in the mid-1960s with the Coleman Report (Coleman et al. 1966) in the United States. Since then, there are three distinct but inter-related branches of school effectiveness research, namely, (a) school effects research – i.e. scientific properties of school effects, e.g. the size of school effects, (b) effective schools research – i.e. process oriented study of characteristics of effective schools, and (c) school improvement research – focusing and limiting its test of specific models of effective schools.

Nigeria as a nation strives to experience real growth and development. This requires a clearly defined development strategy that allows intensive utilization of resources which is endowed. These resources are the various school physical facilities that are indispensable in the educational process. They include the sitting, the building and physical equipment, recreation places for the achievement of educational objectives (Oluchuckwu, 2000).

School environment with its attendant features of instructional spaces planning, administrative places planning, circulation spaces planning, spaces for conveniences planning, accessories planning, the teachers as well as the students themselves are essential in the teaching-learning process. The extent to which student learning could be enhanced depends on their environment in the locality, within the school compound, the structure of their classroom, availability of instructional facilities and accessories. It is believed that a well planned school will gear up expected outcomes of education that will facilitate good social, political and economic emancipation, effective teaching and learning process and academic performance of the students.

The physical characteristics of the school have a variety of effects on teachers, students, and the learning process. Poor lighting, noise, high levels of carbon dioxide in classrooms, and inconsistent temperatures make teaching and learning difficult. Poor maintenance and ineffective ventilation systems lead to poor health among students as well as teachers, which leads to poor performance and higher absentee rates (Frazier, 2002 Lyons, 2001; and Ostendorf, 2001). These factors can adversely affect student behavior and lead to higher levels of frustration among teachers, and poor learning attitude among student.

Beyond the direct effects that poor facilities have on students’ ability to learn, the combination of poor facilities, which create an uncomfortable and uninviting workplace for teachers, combined with frustrating behavior by students including poor concentration and hyperactivity, lethargy, or apathy, creates a stressful set of working conditions for teachers. Because stress and job dissatisfaction are common pre-cursors to lowered teacher enthusiasm, it is possible that the aforementioned characteristics of school facilities have an effect upon the academic performance of students.

Previous studies have investigated the relationship of poor school environment including problems with student-teacher ratio, school environment, school population, classroom ventilation, poor lighting in classrooms, and inconsistent temperatures in the classroom with student health problems, student behavior, and student achievement (Crandell & Smaldino, 2000; Davis, 2001; Johnson, 2001; Lyons, 2001;Moore, 2002; Stricherz, 2000; Tanner, 2000). To complement these studies, the present research examines the aforementioned areas of school environmental factors such as environment of the school itself, class size, school facilities, and school population affect the effectiveness of schools in Osun state.

Some studies examined environmental planning and their attendant consequences on achievement of students in various states of the Federation. The studies were intended to assist education authorities of various states to decide where a particular type of school should be located; the size of a school in each environment; whether a new school should be built or otherwise among others (Mbakwe, 1986). The World Bank recommended that the following data were needed for rationalizing and drawing up of both the urban and rural

school map. Schools which includes physical aspects, site, type of building, usage, capacity, teachers (numbers, qualification, and age); students which include enrollment in school by age, individual data in age, sex, previous schools, home, environment of mode transport, time taken in home/school journey, parental background; Rural and Urban Area Data which include land use administrative map on as large a scale as possible, planning reports,

settlement patterns and the likes are required. These school environmental planning techniques have been reportedly used by a number of countries to solve their educational problems (World Bank Guidelines 1978).

In applying the school environmental planning to study and establishment of technical college level education in a plot study in Osun State of Nigeria, Omoyemi (1978) discovered that environments of schools was not based on sound principles of distribution of population because of initial community participation.

In his observation, Ogunsaju (1984) noted that School sites in the past were arbitrary chosen with little or no consideration for the necessary parameters such as creativity and corporate planning. In another development, Orebiyi (1981) using environmental implication of secondary education reform 1980 and 1985 purpots that unplanned environment of technical colleges has limited the spread of secondary education to a few centers.

Madumere (1982) investigated the distribution of technical colleges in Imo State (Ohaozara Local Government area), employing environmental planning technique to carry out diagnostic and projection analysis on distribution of facilities in relation to education reforms, discovered among other things, that were imbalances in the relationship between population density and distribution of technical colleges by Local Government Area.

In her analysis of the distribution of public primary schools in three selected Nigerian towns, Tanimowo (1995) discovered that the distribution of shows disorder, painlessness and inefficiency. The inefficiency here refers to student academic performance. The implication is that while people in some areas enjoy minimum travelling distances to acquire education, some people in other places suffer by having to cover maximum distances to acquire education; some people in other places suffer by having to cover maximum distances to get to their school.

In line with the above, Onokerhoraye (1975) emphasized that lack of suitable school environment has contributed to the imbalances of Western education from one part of the country to the other. Writing on the importance of environment, Ojoawo (1989) found that it is one of the potent factors that influence the distribution of educational resources. Throwing light on environmental influence. Ezike (1997) conceptualized urban environment as those environment as those environment which have high population density containing a high

variety and beauty and common place views. He further identified the rural environment as being characterized by low population density containing a low variety and isolated place views.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The researcher has investigated series of administrative problems affecting students’

academic performance. Some identified factors include poor instructional quality, students’

negative attitude to school, overcrowded classrooms, poor facilities in schools (Oghuvbu 1998, 2000 and 2003). From the experience of the researcher, student attendance is low in rural and highly populated urban schools.

Teachers are in school, while most learners, students are at home. During examination period, there is 100% attendance in school. Examination-oriented attendance student, by nature depends on the knowledge of the regular attendance students or enter examination hall with prepared materials which are types of examination malpractice. In

recent times, rural students perform high in external certificate examinations in which continuous assessment is part of the overall grade. This unscientific performance calls to mind certain questions. Does attendance in school and at lesson has no influence on students’ academic performance? What is the correlation among school environment variables, attendance and academic performance of students in technical colleges in Osun state, Nigeria.

Emphasizing the importance of school environment to school attendance started with Coleman’s Report (Coleman et al. 1966) in the Nigeria. Since then, various researches have been conducted on school attendance. These researches, however, were centred on the developed countries. With the exception of few works (Isaac et al, 2010; Adewuyi, 2002; Ahmed, 2003; and Ijeoma, 2007), no serious attempt has been made to study how school environmental factors serve as determinants of school attendance in Osun state technical colleges. It is on this basis that the present study seeks to unravel how environment of the school itself, class size, school facilities, and school organization are structurally significant to an effective school.

Basic Technology is one of the pre-vocational subjects offered at the Junior Technical colleges (JTC) in Osun state. Basic Technology which was introduced in 2007 (NERDC, 2007) existed with the name Introductory Technology (IT) from 1982 until 2007 (25 years).

The understanding of the Federal Government of Osun state is that Basic Technology would contribute to the national goal of education since the world was increasingly driven by technology. The teaching of the subject has been faced with numerous problems that can impede the realization of the objectives. One of such problems is the low academic achievement in the subject. Over the years, student achievement in Basic Technology has been so low that Basic Technology has the highest percentage failure and the lowest percentage pass at the JTCCE for the past 10years (2002-2011) compared to the other

core subjects at the junior technical college level. Infact, how to achieve the objectives of Basic Technology has been a major concern to educators.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To identify the correlation between school environment and students attendance.

2. To find out the relationship between gender and school environment on attendance and academic

performance of students

3. To find out the relationship between school environment and students’ academic achievement.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. Is there relationship between school environment and students attendance?

2. Do gender and school environment influence attendance and academic performance of students?

3. Does school environment relates with students’ academic achievement?

1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

H0: There is no relationship between school environment and students attendance.

H1: There is relationship between school environment and students attendance.

H0: Gender and school environment do not influence attendance and academic performance of students.

H1: Gender and school environment influence attendance and academic performance of students.

H0: School environment does not relates with students’ academic achievement.

H1: School environment relates with students’ academic achievement.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

It is hoped that this study will provide information for parents, educators and technical college administrators to reflect upon various factors that can aid the school to be effective in helping students to achieve their goals. In so doing, they can investigate the possibility of introducing these recommended factors to their school, which may consequently lead to enhancing students’ educational outcomes in school. In addition, the fact that this study is conducted in public schools, it shares quite a lot of similarities with many other counterparts. In this connection, this study provides a valuable reference for other schools to reflect upon the school environment as it affect the academic performance of student in technical college.

To Basic Technology teachers, the findings of this study if disseminated through teacher’s workshop will likely make them better informed of the impact school environment variables on the students attendant of attendance in technical colleges. Thus, appropriate teaching methods and techniques will be employed in the teaching and learning of the subject irrespective of their gender, attitude and the environment of the school for improved academic achievement. Both the students and parents will benefit since the cumulative positive effect of the responses from the government, technical college administrators and the guidance counselors is to their own advantage.

1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This research work school environment variables as determinant of students attendance in technical colleges in Osu state. However, four public technical colleges will be used as case study.

1.8 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Apart from time-frame and shortage of finance, the major limitation to this research is the inability of the researcher to cover the whole public technical college in Osun State as the scope of the study suggest.

1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS

School environment: It is the geographical situation of school.

School attendance: School attendance is an integral part of a child’s success in school, the rate at which children are absent from school is relevant”.

Effort: Effort refers to application, endeavour, struggle or labour, while ability means competence, power or talent of the individual.

Effort and ability: Effort and abilityexplain how achievement and motivation in both male and female is determined, that is, the difference in academic achievement in male and female (gender) is attributed to effort and ability.

Academic Achievement: Students’ academic achievement can be interchangeably used as academic performance. Academic achievement or (academic) performance is the outcome of education, that is, the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has achieved their educational goals. Academic

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