Full Project – Full Project – EFFECT OF SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT ON STUDENT PERFORMANCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOL

Full Project – Full Project – EFFECT OF SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT ON STUDENT PERFORMANCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOL

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the study

Generally in the whole world, particularly in Nigeria, education has been considered to be the corner – stone for development. It forms the basis for literacy, skill acquisition, technological advancement and ability to harness human and material resources towards the performance of societal goal, (FRN, 2004).

Education is very important in any given society. It is a process by which abilities and capabilities of individual are developed. These abilities might be physical abilities, emotional abilities, social abilities and intellectual abilities. It is the actualizing of human potential so that the individual can become something more than what he was before. According to Ugwuanyi (2003) education is the process by which society establishes to assist the young to learn and understand the heritage of the past, participate productively in the society and contribute meaningfully for the development of the society. Emeka (2008) citing Kneller (2000) sees education as a process by which any society through schools, colleges, universities and other institutions deliberately transmit knowledge, values and skills from one person to another. As a result of deregulation in Nigerian education, the system of education has two main interest groups – public education and private education.

Public education is the pillar or backbone of society which opens the door of equal educational opportunity to all citizens. It is a public owned property which attracts public attention constantly. According to Ukeje in Akpa, Udoh and Faghamiye (2005):

Public school is concerned with the acquisition of appropriate skills, abilities and competencies of both mental and physical nature as equipment for the individual to live in this society, and acquisition of a relevant and balanced knowledge of facts about local and world phenomena. (P. 12-13)

Secondary school is the stage of education following primary school. It is generally the final stage of compulsory education. Webster (2009) sees secondary school as a school intermediate between elementary school and collage usually offering general technical, vocational or college- preparatory course, while Collins (2003) refers to it as a school for young people, usually between the ages of eleven and eighteen. As for the National policy on education (FRN, 2004) it is the form of education children receive after primary education and before the tertiary stage.

Environment can be defined as a system within which living organisms interacts with the physical element while education environment is a learning place where the learner learn and interact with learning facilities in order to be socialized and face the challenges in the society. Agusiegbe (2004) sees environments as consisting of all elements existing around man and which exert some effect on him. These include physical, biological and social attributes. Environment can also be seen as aggregate of all the external condition and effect affecting the life and development of an organism.

In this study, environment includes all the external condition and effects in the school that affect the academic performance of the student such as laboratory equipment, library facilities, qualified teachers, furniture, school building, good administrative management, teacher pupil relationship and school environment among others. Environment for the purpose of this work can be divided into two parts-home environment and school environment.

School environment is the thread that connects the multitude of activities on the school. In many respects, this thread is almost invisible, yet everyone experiences its effect. Dudek (2000) opined that it could be said to be the external effects in the school that can effect academic performance of students irrespective of their intelligent quotient. School environment can also be considered as the second teacher since space has the power to organize and promote pleasant relationships between people of different ages, to provide changes, to promote choices and activities and for its potential for sparking different types of social and affective learning (Okeke 2001). It has been generally accepted that environment and heredity can hardly be separated from education in influencing performance, hence a child’s life and ability is effectd by nature and nurture. Heredity provides the natural disposition while a healthy environment makes available a window of opportunities to the learner (Ohuche 2001). The environment variable of the setting helps to a large extent in ensuring attainability of the goals of such setting. The environment differences and the differences in the quality of instruction from one school to another can create differences in the level of knowledge acquisition of the students. This shows that the learning facilities children are exposed to and the socio-economic effect on them can affect their academic performance.

School environment includes the school building and the surrounding grounds such as noise, temperature and lighting as well as physical, biological or chemical agent, (Chiu 1991). School environment can then be seen to include material and human resources, a learning place which consist of the entire interaction. The learning environment is both the natural and provided setting where teaching and learning takes place. Maduewesi (1990) referred to teaching and learning environment as the setting physical and conceptual in which teaching and learning are carried out as deliberately planned. And to Okobia in Maduewesi (1990) learning environment means classroom surroundings, physical facilities in the classroom and teacher – pupil relationship.

Studies on the relationship between availability of resources and students academic performance have revealed that secondary schools provided with adequate education resources performed significantly better than those provided with inadequate resources (Balogun, 1995). Environment is a very important factor in performance of goal of any educational programme. People acquire most of their knowledge through the interaction with facilities provided in the environment for learning. Also learning is effectd by the environment people are exposed to and the facilities provided in such environment lead to experience. As in the words of Piaget (1964) that active interaction with the environment is regarded as the most basic requirement for proper intellectual development.

The physical appearance and general condition of school physical facilities are the striking basis upon which many parents and friends of any educational institution make initial judgment about the quality of what goes on in the school. They are often turned off by dilapidated school blocks with sinking roofs and broken walls, bushy lawn and over grown hedges. Also are profane writings on walls, littered lawns and path ways. Finally, the school physical environment is like a mirror reflecting the image of a school and through it the public decide whether or not to associate with the particular school (Mgbodile 2004).

In Nigeria today, schools are closely associated with the communities. Most communities depend on the neighbourhood school for the provision of good and appropriate environment for accommodation, furniture and all form of equipment for certain activities like club or village meetings, wedding reception and church services. There is need for a well planned and organized educational environment enrichment because it fosters good interpersonal relationship. Moreover, Ajayi and Ashaolu (2005) opined that environment enrichment regarding physical facilities is a major factor in students’ academic performance. Supporting this Ayodele (2005) and Ajayi (2007), have shown that school resources aid students academic performance.

It is now certain that most of secondary school products cannot gain admission into federal universities or university of their choice due to poor performance in the placement examination into these schools. This poor performance may be attributed to poor learning environment especially in the following areas: schools building, library services, and school environment and school facilities.

School building: These are tangible structures which serve as shelter for educational activities. They include among others classroom, laboratories, workshops, and teacher’s common rooms/offices, reading rooms, libraries, dormitories and dinning hall. Despite the evidence that the quality of a school building affect students’ academic performance, most public schools, in Enugu state are in poor physical condition. It is in line with this that Earthman (2004) opined that the building in which students spends a good deal of learning does effect how well they learn.

(Mgbodile 2004 ) have pointed out that for effective teaching and learning situation, school building and educational goals, should be viewed as being interwoven. Apart from protecting the pupils from the sun, rain, heat and cold, school building represent learning environment which has great impact on the comfort, safety and performance of the children.

Library services: The school library is a room or building in a school where books, magazines, journals, periodicals, cassettes, computers among others are kept for student’s use. In other words, it is the central laboratory of the whole school, where all books in all subject areas, taught in the school and non-book materials are stocked. Dike (2001) sees school library as a learning laboratory par excellence where learners find the world of knowledge, interact directly with resources, acquire information and develop research skill for life long learning.

The objective of the school library is to serve the school’s need and to make possible the purpose and methods of education which the school undertakes. The school library enables the students to look to new ways of learning, and with its resources can play a programme of work that aims at new ambition’s education result which would be impossible if learning were restricted to the use of direct teaching and textbook alone.

School environment: A school could be located in the urban or rural area. Rural schools are generally inferior to urban schools as schools in rural areas lacked human and material resources needed for success at school. The environment of school whether urban or rural affects a child’s ability to study and perform at the level expected of him. Mkpugbe (1998) noted that different aspects of school environment (rural and urban) effects students performance. She further stated that the individual student’s academic behaviour is effectd not only by the motivating forces of his home, scholastic ability, and academic values but also by the social pressure applied by the participants in the school setting.

Also differences in environment imply differences in the existence of demographic and socio-economic parameters of the school. As stated by Imoagene (1988) in Akubue and Ifelunni (2006) that because of urban involvement, students in urban schools perform better than those in rural schools in language learning. The reason he gave include the fact that rural students have limited access to reading materials, inadequate reading culture and insufficient graduate teachers in rural schools. Therefore, the environment of school has tremendous effect on children’s academic performance.

School facilities: School facilities refer to inputs which ease the operation of academic activities. They include desks, chairs, blackboards, dustbins, teaching aids, typewriters, computers generators, and calculators and so on. School facilities according to Ehiametalor (2001) are operational inputs of every instructional programme. They are material resources that facilitate effective teaching and learning in schools. The quality and quantity of school facilities enhance the quality of teaching and learning as well as effective school management (Ojedele, 2003).

Furthermore, educational facilities are needed to develop cognitive areas of knowledge, abilities and skills that are necessary for academic performance. Moreover, the development of the affective and psychomotor domain is also facilitated by the presence of necessary and relevant school facilities.

From the fore going one can see that school environment plays a crucial role in academic performance of a child. This problem of poor performance is more pronounced in ill-equipped schools hence it becomes necessary to find out the effect of school environment on the student performance in secondary schools in Enugu State.

 

Statement of the problem

The problem under study has to do with an unsatisfactory condition of the educational system being operated in Nigeria. The establishment of government schools/community schools has resulted in a situation where by some school were favoured in terms of the provision of rich environment than others. It has been very difficult if not impossible for government to standardize the school environment. Thus the environment varies from school to school.

Some schools have adequate school buildings, good library and suitable textbooks, good administrative management, professionally qualified teachers, good laboratory equipments as well as good environment. While in some schools little or none of these exist. It is because of this that Chike-Okoli (1997) in line with Ikediashi (2002) have pointed out that poor teaching experience, inadequate or poor physical infrastructure, unsatisfactory building design are likely to cause some physical discomfort for the students and are therefore bound to effect their academic performance. The problem of this study put in a question form is: What is the effect of school facilities and equipment on the student performance in secondary schools in Enugu State?

 

Purpose of the study

The main purpose of the study is to determine the effect of school environment on the student performance in secondary school in Enugu State.

Specifically the study intends to:

1. Investigate the extent the quality of the physical school environment with regard to school buildings affect the academic performances of students of public secondary school.
2. Determine the extent the library services affects student performance in secondary schools.
3. Find out the extent school environment affect student’s academic performance of public secondary schools.
4. Ascertain the  extents  the  school  facilities  affect  students academic performance of public secondary schools.

Significance of the study

The findings from this study will be of immense benefits to the government,   principals,   teachers,   parents    as    well    as    student researchers.

The  findings  will  help  the  government  or  the  policy  makers  in formulating   effective   planning   and   implementation   policies     and programmes for improved school academic activities. It will also provide policy makers with intelligent forecast and analysis of future needs of the schools in the areas of building and facilities.

It will provide the school principals the opportunity to improve in school supervision so as to ensure both quality teaching and learning in the schools. It will enable them appreciate the contribution of school facilities and equipment on students academic performance. The findings will enable the teachers to appreciate the need for proper instructional delivery. It will help the teacher to improve both in teaching effectiveness and increased productivity in the schools.

It will help the parents in determining the choice of the type of school for their children. This is because, their wards will enjoy good school learning environment that will lead to quality school products. Finally, it will be of benefit to the student researchers as it will provide a valid working document or literature in investigating other areas not covered by this study. Thus, it will serve as a point of reference to future researchers in the field.

 

Scope of the study

The study is delimited to the effect of school environment on the students’ performance of public secondary schools in Enugu State. The content area covers school building, library services, school environment and school facilities.

 

Research questions

The following research questions will guide the study:

1. To what extent do the qualities of the physical school environment with regard to school building affect the academic performances of students of public secondary schools?
2. To what extent do the library services affect the academic performances of students of public secondary schools?
3. How does school environment affect academic performances of students of public secondary schools?
4. To what extent do the school facilities affect students’ academic performances of public secondary schools?

Hypotheses

Two null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study and will be tested at 0.05 level of significant.

HO₁: There is no significant difference between the mean ratings of teachers in urban and those in rural school on the extent school building affect the performances of students of public secondary schools.

HO₂: Male and female teachers do not differ significantly in their mean ratings with regard to the extent school facilities affect students’ academic performance.

 

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