Parental Background and Pupils’ Academic Performance in Pre-Primary Schools
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
The home is the child’s first place of contact with the world and the significant people in the home are the parents. The child as a result acquires initial education and socialization from present and other significant persons in the home. The home is where every child is born into and makes first interactions. These interactions can contribute of the child permanently. The destiny of mankind depends on the child and the welfare of the child is closely linked to the home in terms of the innate tendencies drawn from the genetic transcription and the home environment.
Parental background in this context such as parent’s educational attained, socio-economic status of parents, level of social class placement are those factors that vary from one home to another. Others include; occupation of parents and home type such as broken home and single parenting.the psychological home conditional arises mainly from illegitimacy of children, the label of adopted child, broken home, divorce and parental deviation and such abnormal effect may affect the academic performance of the child. If children from homes with unstable and low socio-economic status background are compared with those from rich and stable background, it would be observed that those from rich and stable background perform academically better than those from poor and unstable background who may be experiencing social, emotional and psychological problems.
The environment in which the child finds his or herself can either make the child generation after generation geniuses die without being noticed as a result of their circumstances of birth. Parents are probably the actions with the dearest undimensional interest in a high level of their children’s academic performance. To some extent, there is simple evidence to show that mental instability which is one of the effects of home variables brings about stress, tension, lack of motivation and frustration among children of nursery schools age.
Obviously, these manifestation acts in negatively on a child’s academic performance in school. Children of unmarried parents, separated families, poor socio-economic status, low educational attainment amongst others, often fail and are at risk emotionally and academically. However, this may not be completely applicable in all instances of poor home background or structure as children from this background may work hard through the influence of the school environment and become successful academically.
Moreover, the environment which a child finds his or herself at the early stage of development influences the learning ability of the child and ultimately, this therefore formed the background that this study was conducted.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Elementary science is a subject taught children from nursery school to universities in Nigeria. Nursery education as contained in the National Policy on Education (NPE) is the education given in institutions for children aged 3-5years (FRN, 2013).Since the result of the educational system is built upon the nursery education, it is the foundation and hence the key to success of failure of the child academically. However, Elementary science is a subject which deals with the systematic study of nature. It is core science subject in the primary school curriculum because its knowledge is indispensable to the educated man about his environment. The aim of Elementary science teaching is to prepare the child to learn and understand the more specialized techniques provided later in life.
Inspite of much emphasis laid on this subject, the study of Elementary science has not been encouraging in Nigeria as some pupils’ dropout on the way. This is attributed this observation to factors related to parents, such as poverty, early marriage, persistent academic under achievement, home responsibilities and sickness in the home, similarly in nursery schools in Uruan Local Government Area, pupils have been performing so poorly, academically in most of their school subject like Elementary science.
This poor performance among pupils has caused serious concern among teachers, parents, educational planner and the society at large. The poor academic performance could be attributed to the fact that pupils are from different parental background. It was therefore necessary to examine the relationship between parental background and pupils’ academic performance in pre-primary schools in Elementary science in Uruan Local Government Area.
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The main purpose of this study was to investigate parental background and pupils’ academic performance in pre-primary schools in Elementary science. Specifically, the study intends to;
1.4 Research Questions
The following research questions were formulated to guide the study;
1.5 Research Hypotheses
The following null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study:
1.6 Significance of the study
The finding of this study may be significant in the following ways:
- It will be significant benefits to primary school teachers in a sense that they will modify their teaching strategies to suit all categories of pupils irrespective of their home background.
- The finding of the study will help parent in understanding their background as it affect their children academic performance in school.
- It will also help educational planners and curriculum planners to design a curriculum that will make learning of Elementary science and other school subject interesting to pupils irrespective of their home background.
- The study will provide useful information for guidance counselors for effective counseling of both parents and pupils as it highlight the effect of home variables on pupils’ academic performance in Elementary science.
- The finding of this study will also provide bases for further studies on home variables and academic performance of pupils in primary schools.
