EFFECTS OF BROKEN HOMES ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

EFFECTS OF BROKEN HOMES ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

CHAPTER ONE

Education has always been a crucial institution in most civilizations, according to Agogo (2006), who cited Aliu (2001), who defined education as the process through which a society passes on its knowledge, culture, and values from one generation to the next. Education is the process through which a person learns knowledge, obtains skills, and develops talents and attitudes essential for work place survival, it was further emphasized. Education is the eye of an individual. In fact, government involvement and dynamic intervention in education have grown to constitute a significant government initiative (FGN 2004). Because of the current educational system, individuals today see education as a right rather than a luxury. As a result, everyone feels as if they belong to the society and have responsibilities to fulfill. Because many individuals think that education is the key to success, education is sometimes referred to as the “eye of the individual” (Agogo 2006). A family is defined as a group made up of one or two parents and their children, whereas a home is defined as a family living together and how it acts, according to Hornby (2000). (Ibid). Broken home is a phrase used to describe a home where parenting is the main focus and where the family unit does not operate as it should in accordance with societal standards (Wikipedia online). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how family structures that don’t adhere to social standards affect secondary school kids’ academic performance in the Obafemi Owode Local Government Area. It is believed that there must be variations in each learner’s performance in every class of learners. Even if he employed the same materials and approach for the class with 40 students, the instructor can find that they do not all learn at the same pace (Mallum & Haggai 2004), and as a result, there are variances in the academic achievement of the pupils. However, a number of elements, including human intellect, the surroundings, the meaninglessness of learning materials, and learning style, among others, might influence the pace of learning (Ibid). The family is the fundamental unit of society, and the house has a significant impact on the student’s psychological, emotional, social, and economic status (Abah 2006). Thus, the choice of a broken home as a factor impacting academic performance is not far from this reality (Ajila and Olutola 2007). Since parents are the first socializing influences in a person’s life, the condition of the house has an impact on that person (Ibid). His family is the most important factor in laying the emotional, moral, and spiritual basis for the child’s complete growth (Uwaifo 2008). It is ideal for the school to be in charge of the experiences that shape and equip each student’s life while they are in school, but parents and individual experiences at home have a huge impact on a child’s personality and influence how they will live their school lives. Ichado (1998) came to the conclusion that a student’s upbringing can have a significant impact on both his personality and academic performance as a secondary school student. As a result, the importance of education justifies the need for this study, which will investigate the impact of a broken home on secondary school students’ academic performance and offer potential solutions to such influences. The importance of secondary education in the whole educational process cannot be overstated, and as a result, the quality of elementary and secondary education has a significant impact on the kind and occasionally the number of higher education institutions available to the general public (Agogo 2006). These whole facts indicate the importance of this investigation. The focus of this research will be on how different features of broken homes affect kids’ academic achievement. It will look at questions like: To what degree do foster children do academically better than children living with their own married parents? How much do kids who live with single parents do better in school than kids who live with their mother and father? It will also examine how broken families have influenced the amount of parental involvement in their children’s education and how broken homes have affected parents’ drive to do well in school. This study also aims to address how broken households affect the emotional climate in homes, the socioeconomic standing of parents, and the overall emotional stability of children.

Statement of the Study

Over time, investigations into the factors that impact students’ academic success have drawn increased attention from educators in Nigeria, including teachers, counselors, psychologists, researchers, and school administrators (Wiseman 1998). This has occurred as a result of public uproar about the nation’s subpar educational standards (Imoge 2002). The nation’s overall declining quality of education, and the Obafemi Owode Local Government area of Ogun State in particular, as evidenced by poor academic performance and the breeding of graduates with limited technical know-how, has caused a serious setback in the industrial development of the country. Due to this, there were few competent applicants for admission to the nation’s numerous higher institutions in Obafemi Owode Local Government. Students’ internal states, such as intellect, health, motivation, and anxiety, as well as their surroundings, which includes the availability of an appropriate learning environment and enough educational infrastructure, have been recognized as possible reasons of low academic performance. For instance, in 2006, a daily sketch publication on “causes and curses of poor performance at West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE)” identified and categorize problems responsible for students’ poor performance to problems of teachers, problems of inadequate facilities in schools, problems traceable to students, problems caused by parents and society at large, problems caused by government policies, and problems caused by low funding of the educational sector (Ajila and Olutola, 2007). Regarding parental-related issues, Ichado (1998) asserted that ongoing arguments between parents have an emotional impact on kids and may harm their academic performance, while Bichlery (1996) and Agbo (1997) discovered that kids from broken homes perform worse in school and have lower self-esteem and motivation to succeed than kids from intact homes with both parents present. Based on the previously said, the researcher intends to carry out this study on the effect of broken houses on secondary school kids’ academic performance in Obafemi Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State. The researcher is interested in learning how much dysfunctional families have an adverse effect on the academic performance of secondary school students.