ABSTRACT

The project deals with the Broken Home and its effects on academic performance in some selected secondary school in Odeda local government area of ogun state. The chapter one comprises of introduction, the chapter two based on review of related literature, and causes of broken home, while chapter three based on research methodology  and method of data collection, chapter four emphasise on  data analysis, tables, and the final chapter which is chapter five deals with the summary, conclusion and recommendation of the topic. 

CHAPTER ONE

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

1.1       INTRODUCTION

Broken Home, is a family system that is organized into a single-parent household. The setup usually results from a divorce of separation of parents. Currently, the term is hardly ever used by social scientists due to its implication of a family being dysfunctional.

            “Growing up in a broken home does not necessarily mean home does not aids develop an emotional and psychological dysfunctional”

            Nigerian environment is associated with unclassified problems entangled with improverism outlook and being devoid of most facilities and infrastructure that could sustain an urban area. This is clearly manifested on the standard of living and the contribution of the people towards national development.

            This circumvented problem in the rural areas has adverse effects on the student’s academic performance. It is imperative therefore to exhume the associated rural problem that affects their academic achievement with the prevailing order in the educational arsenal. Most often than not, there has been persistent cry about the state of intellectual  attainment in the school system. This cry does not include only student’s performance in the rural area but in the urban as well.

            Environment according to oxford Advanced dictionaryis the natural conditions like land, air and water, in which people animals and plants live and also circumstance affecting their life. Environment can be physical or psychological. Physical environment deals withmaterial aspects such as infrastructure, availability of resources facilities. The psychological environment includes the home, school community and significantly other people in our lives such as parents, peers and siblings.

            The quality of our name is very significant; some have a history or tradition of formal education and modern influence, while some are not so well equipped. The gadgets, resources and facilities in both type of home will influence the learning processes of children born in these home.

            Students have shown that if a child lives in an improver is hed environment for the first four years of life, he is likely to lose as many as, in reading knowledge and skills, general knowledge and skills. ‘’ The environment’’ provides the necessary conditions for both physical and intellectual growth. The African child has often been hand capped by ill-health, lack of motivation, nutritional deficiencies, and unfair criticism. This hampers his intellectual development considering as such treatment invariably result in negative self-concept.

            ‘’ Home’’ is where the child, the parent or guardians live and from where the child set-out to and fro to school. Home is first enduring environmental factor in promoting readiness for school work in the child. This is because parent or guardians in the home are children first teacher. From the day a child is born and begin to hear, he or she is begins to develop literacy as parent and other caring adults and pre-school teachers speaks, play, sing and read to them. As a child, he moves from infant to toddler and then to preschooler, he learns to be able to read, write and listen and speak.

            Early literacy development is a significant part of preparing children to achieve academically. Basic literacy activities that are associated with children’s engagement with texts and success in reading were identified by literacy researcher (Dickinson and Tabors, 2001, Wasik and Band 2001) includes Oral language development, which includes book reading, phoneme awareness activities (acquired through nursery rhymes single poetry and books that contain ward with rhymes), And exposure to alphabet.

            The influence of parent especially, mothers on children early literacy acquisition and subsequent school achievement is well documented in numerous studies (Trusty, 1998, Yan and Lin 2002; Godden & Ray 2003), performance including higher academic achievement (Mc Neal ‘1999’, Scribner, Lin 2003); and greater social and emotional development. Parents not only provide good learning experiences and through talking with the child, sharing experiences and teaching but also help to help to organize a child’s learning experiences.

            Also, children with richer home literacy environment demonstrate higher level of reading knowledge and skills than those low academic exposure. Psychologists have also discovered from various studies that hereditary skills than those long way to determine a child’s intelligence and consequently the levels of reading knowledge and skill that those low academic exposure. Those children whose parents are noted for higher intelligence quotient are band to inherent such  traits through genetic transfer and such children are sometimes referred to as a chip of the old block.

            In conclusion, parents attribute a lot of the academic achievement of their children in school. It is assumed that student from home that do not have interest for education tend to perform poorly in their subject like Chemistry, Biology, English Language, Mathematics, Igbo Language, Physics. This is because they lack encouragement and incentives from parents which affect them negatively. Therefore, the home is expected to provide a good atmosphere to embrace students learning.

1.2       STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

            Most people hold view that home environment of a child affect his academic performance. Today, most parents are not highly involved in early academic acquisition of their children. In the home mothers are the first teachers, they are care giver and minder of the child during the critical period of their development through fathers do as well (Brim Hail and West 1997; Gadson and Ray,2003). The problem arises from the fact that the jobs of so many parents are so demanding and this may explain why they do not have ample time for their children. Some parents are either unable or refuse to provide the basic need of the child to the socio-economic attainment existing among the various home in highly civilized areas and this also affect the academic performance in the school. Many conflicting views have been expected by various author as the factors that are responsible for this poor standard of academic performance of secondary school students. While some blame this poor performance on the government inadequately in fulfilling all its obligation towards education. Other maintains that teachers are responsible for this state of affairs.

            The thrust of this project is to critically examine  and analyze the effect of home background on the academic performance of students. Though this research carried out elsewhere, little or no effort has seen made in the past to carry-out this research in Enugu North Local Government of Enugu State. Time work seek to investigate how the role played by the home, directly or indirectly affect the student’s academic performance to investigate this therefore, the following will be considered;

What is the mystery surrounding the disparities in performance of students from different homes, learning under the same environment?

Does the socio-economic status of the home have any considerable influence on student’s academic performance?

What effect doest the learning environment has on the education achievement of student?

1.3       PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

            To determine the extent of the effect of socio-economic status of parents on students’ academic performance in some selected schools, the study will look the academic status of the parent and find out whether. It has any considerable influence on the student’s academic performance. It will also consider to what extent status of parent (at homes) provides visual aids for meaningful education achievement. This will also examine how the school and home community influence the academic performance of the child in the school.

1.4       SCOPE OF THE STUDY

            This research on the influence of the home background on the academic performance of student is carried out.

            However as a result of time factor, finance and transportation constraints, the research could not go round secondary school to carry out the findings.

            Consequently, ten(10) secondary school were sample where the research beliefs could get authentic data for the project.

1.5       RESEARCH QUESTION

            The research questions to be answered in this study are:

1.         To what extent do socio-economic status of the parents influence the child’s education?

2.         To what extent do the level of academic of parent affects the degree of the academic performance of the student?

3.         How do the learning environments affect the academic performance of the children?

1.6       SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

            This study will give the government and parent the opportunity of knowing from the public  how to deal with problems arising from home in relation to education. It will help the school and policy makers to find out the effects of home on the academic performance of student in secondary schools.

The finding will also be of benefit to both teachers and guidance counsellors in their respective planning for instance establishing a relationship between the academic qualification of parents, marital set-up of home, parents and children relationship and the academic performance of student.

The study will go a long way to letting the authorize concerned to be aware of the effects of socio-economic background on the student’s academic performance.

1.7      DEFINITION OF TERMS

·         HOME:The home refers to aspects of peoples’ domestic lives that contribute to their living conditions. These factors may be physical poverty, psychological condition due to parenting; social circumstance (single parenting) winder cultural patterns of life related to the location (Urban or Rural environments).

·         PARENT: The term parent as used in this study includes, in addition to a natural parents, such as a grandparent or step parent with whom the child lives, or a person who is legally responsible for a child’s welfare.

·         INFLUENCE: This is the poor to affect somebody’s character, benefits or action through example.

·         FAMILY: This refers to a social unit consisting of parent and their children. Family consists of father, mother and their children.

·         ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: This refers to now much the pupil respond to the teaching and learning of formal school successfully especially using their own efforts and skills.

·         PUPIL: This is a person who is being taught especially a child in a school. Pupils are learners in primary school.

·         ENVIRONMENT: This can be refers to as the natural nature of life and the things that happen around us. This can be physical, social, psychological activities in our daily programmes.

·         LEARNING: Is the process of acquiring knowledge from more knowledgeable person to lower reasonable learners.

·         SCHOOL: This is a formal gathering which pupils, student or those that have not enrolled into the gathering to acquire knowledge, believes, norm in a formal way and within the four wall of the school and within the specific period of time.

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