EDUCATIONAL FACILITY AND SOCIAL STUDIES STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE IN JUNIOR WAEC IN JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Regardless of its natural endowment, no country can thrive unless it prioritizes human capital development, which may be achieved via a solid academic foundation geared to secondary school performance. Nigerian culture puts a high value on education, believing it to be the sole path to national growth. However, this can only be accomplished if students at the citadel of learning's boarding and day schools get actively engaged in academic activities that will improve their academic performance. As a result, the country's technical progress will accelerate.

Education is seen as a worthwhile investment for national development in many nations throughout the globe. Education in Nigeria is a "par excellence" tool for achieving national development, and it is highly regarded since it is a system that is anticipated to provide qualitative and quantitative human resources, which are essential for any nation's economic progress, by combining the correct inputs. Nigeria's Federal Government (FGN,2004). On the basis of the above new research, contemporary boarding schools serve a diverse body of motivated and well-rounded students who study and live in supportive, inclusive academic communities where they learn about independence, responsibility, and traditional values that help them achieve success at higher rates in the classroom than private and public day school students.

Small class sizes at boarding schools let instructors engage every student in the classroom, and the settings are often structured to promote student engagement and eye contact among all students. construcción (2007) Children from isolated and rural locations, as well as ethnic and linguistic minorities, may be exposed to new ways of life, routines, responsibilities, technology, instructors, and classmates from outside their community, which helps to socialize and mainstream them.

Students and instructors dine together in boarding schools, which are self-contained communities. They spend their free time together watching TV and playing games. This is because at a boarding school, instructors and staff take the position of parents. They practically and symbolically assume the role of parents. While their charges are in school, they have a significant role in moulding and directing them. Because pupils are not permitted to leave the classroom at the end of the day, they are unable to escape the professors' powerful influence. This is one of the main reasons why many parents send their children to boarding school.

Students may gain skills that will help them live in a larger community while attending a boarding school. Boarding provides students with the chance to support one another with their academics during and after school hours, to collaborate and respect other people's habits and beliefs, and to improve social and communication skills via contact with other students and staff.

Boarding schools, according to UNESCO (2010), offer a centralized learning and living environment that may serve as an effective connection between distant communities of origin and the greater community. The majority of boarding students read on a regular basis since reading is a part of their education, and they sometimes utilize the library and library books. People who have attended a boarding school have more independence, self-confidence, and responsibility since they are less reliant on their parents.

Because students are required to study according to a defined schedule before and after school hours, boarding schools provide structure and discipline. Students learn to respect regulations, perform tasks on time, go to bed on time, and awaken early. Day-school pupils and instructors show less respect for regulations and are less accountable, since they are more irregular and less timely in school, which leads to a lack of discipline and tardiness.

In boarding institutions, overcrowding in dormitories may occasionally quadruple the number of students who were initially expected to be accommodated. Overcrowding in the students' hostels, as well as insufficiency of the nutrition, unavailability of water, and noise from class or neighboring classrooms, were among the issues experienced by boarding students. Other issues include a lack of adequate illumination, interruption from classmates in the same or other classrooms, and interruptions caused by non-human activity such as insects. Despite these issues, the ordinary boarding student has exceptional living and learning circumstances compared to the hardship and degradation experienced by many day students.

Academic Performance, according to Kail, Robert, and John (2007), refers to the respondents' Grade Point Average (GPA) at the conclusion of the semester. It is the approach used by the school to evaluate and assess how effectively pupils grasp what they have been taught, as well as to demonstrate what they have learned by their academic performance throughout the course of the term.

Many day-schools, according to Urban and Daad (2007), provide more than just education, such as food and clothes. However, in the case of boarding institutions, this assistance is often more substantial (including housing). This 'full help' may encourage parents to send their children to school, despite the fact that boarding school is rather costly, and it is only available to those whose parents or guardians can afford it. Indirectly, this assistance adds to improved educational outcomes. It's tough to learn on an empty stomach.

On the other hand, Ebenuwa- Okoh (2010) believes that if there is a prospect of attending or establishing a school nearby, day-schools are preferred. A paucity of schools, induced by a lack of financing, is typically the reason of distance to school. Because day schools are less expensive, more schools (nearer to home) may be constructed. The appropriate mix of home and school life might be found at a day school. The youngster may attend to school to study and develop social skills while still spending time with his or her family at home.

Facility means the system which supports the operation of an organization or an institution to carry its daily activities and to promote growth and development in such organization or institution. Facility refers to the entire environment of the school or an organization; it refers to both the physical and material resources available to the students and teachers in the school to facilitate their learning and teaching process. The classrooms; the libraries and the laboratories for sciences are the three main areas of facilities identified in the school system or environment. (Onyeji, 1990)

Yeloye (1990) states that in terms of the availability of the libraries as one of the educational facilities, a great many of our secondary schools have no functional libraries, and where some libraries are found, there are no new or current books that are relevant to the current secondary school programmes. In effect there are no library facilities in most of the secondary schools in Nigeria, especially in Lagos State.

The importance and uses of the library cannot be under-rated. Libraries and books give great assistance to both the teachers and the learners. In a situation whereby our secondary school students are left with no choice to make their text books as the only source of knowledge, the danger of exposing them to obsolete knowledge in old books donated by the British Council several years ago as one normally finds in the old secondary schools should not be overlooked. According to Dada (1994), any one who is familiar with secondary school classrooms in Nigeria, especially in Lagos State, will agree that no meaningful teaching/learning activities can effectively take place in most of them, even if teachers are God-sent and the learners are celetial pack of highly intelligent personalities, the problem is that where there are classrooms, they are overcrowded to the extent that rooms originally meant for between 30 and 40 students, take between 60 and 80 students with a good number of them sitting on windows. In this situation, neither the teacher nor the students can move freely as expected in our secondary school classrooms. This is why many teachers do not give assignments to such large number of students regularly as expected. And this has affected student’s academic performance drastically.

On science laboraories, Olarewaju (1994) claims that only few schools have science laboratories which are well equipped to carry out scientific experiments in courses such as biology, physics, and chemistry. A good number of schools teach biology or chemistry as if they are non-science subjects without laboratory. Some other schools which are so during, teach the three branches of science without laboratories in the hope that they would use other schools, laboratories during their examinations or compel students to contribute money for purchase of science equipment through the school Parents Teachers Association (PTA). It should be noted that the greater failure rate is in science because our schools lack the essential science to the students but rather, resort to the theoretical science without the use of laboratory. The contention is that the nation has been unfair not only to students in our secondary schools but also to her. This s because no nation can develop technology through theoretical teaching of science subjects, under poor educational facilities, no meaningful teaching and learning can take place, and the normal refrain in the educational circle is that all is well with our secondary schools.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The importance of educational facilities or amenities in the development and growth of the educational sector cannot be overemphasized. Many schools in Nigeria today do not have certain educational facilities that can make the teaching and learning to be easier and enjoyable to both the teachers and the students.

Often times, there has been a constant outcry of the inadequate provision or non-provision of the educational facilities, especially, the laboratories, the classrooms (buildings) and the libraries which are the main educational facilities that aid teaching and learning process, for example due to lack of necessary equipment in the school, teachers in the science fields find it difficult to experiment and carryout practical teaching in the school, and the resultant effect is that most science students fail their science related subjects in the external and internal examinations.

Due to lack of provision of libraries, and sufficient classrooms in the school, year after year, the academic performance of students both in arts and science courses continued to go down. This is because the teachers are not able to utilize the instructional materials to present their teaching thoroughly for the better understanding by the students. In fact the inadequate provision or the non-availability of educational facilities in our secondary schools is what prompted the investigation of this study.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main purpose of this study is find out the possible influence educational facilities have on student performance in social studies in Junior WAEC in Junior secondary schools in Lagos State. Thus, the following studies;

(1) To find out whether the availability of school facilities has a positive effect on students’ academic performance.

(2) To find out whether there is adequate provision of facilities in secondary schools.

(3) Examine if there is any significant difference in the junior WAEC performance of students in schools with adequate facilities and schools with indequate facilities.

(4) To identify the causes of inadequate provision of school facilities in our secondary schools.

1.4 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

The study will test the validity of the following hypotheses

H01: The availability of school facilities has no positive effect on students’ academic performance.

H02: There is no adequate provision of school facilities in secondary schools.

H03: There is no significant difference in students performance in junior WAEC between students in schools with adequate facilities and schools with inadequate facilities.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

It is hoped that students will benefit from this study because they would be able to have proper insight and understanding that non provision of infrastructures in the secondary schools will adversely affect their academic performance.

To teachers, it is hoped that through the study they will come to terms with the fact that the provision of adequate infrastructures will help both students and teachers to facilitate the teaching and learning processes.

The school authorities would utilize the findings and recommendations of this study to find solution to the problem of inadequate provision of infrastructures in our secondary schools. They would through this study understand better the effect of inadequate provision of infrastructures in our schools, on the teachers work performance and the academic performance of students.

It would be of benefit to parents because it will enable them to understand the effect of inadequate infrastructures on academic and work performance of both students and teachers. With the finding and recommendations of this study parents would help the school authorities to find lasting solutions to the problem of inadequate provision of infrastructures in our schools.

1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study will cover the relationship between school facilities and students academic performance in Lagos State.

1.7 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

During the course of this research, the researcher was faced with time constraints and financial constraints.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

1. EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES: This refers to all provision which include physical materials or equipment within the environment of the school which help to facilitate effective

2. PERFORMANCE: This refers to the extent to which a student, teacher or institution have attained their educational goals.