ABSTRACT
The research investigated the comparison of academic performances of junior Science in External Examinations from 2003- 2007. This study is a survey research design. It is a research conducted on a large number o f people to identify general opinion. The study was carried out in Enugu North Local Government Area. The area belongs to Enugu Educational Zone. The population of the study consist of all the students and teachers in junior secondary schools in Enugu North Local Government Area, Enugu State. The population of the students are 20, 470 while that of teachers are 4, 300. We used four junior secondary schools as our sample out of the junior secondary schools in Enugu North Local Government Area, Enugu State. Random sampling techniques were used to select ten (10) students from each of the schools used in the table listed above to ensure that the relevant features of the population were adequately represented. Five (5) staff (teachers) from each of the schools were also sampled. The instrument used was a questionnaire design to elicit responses on the items in questions. The researchers used the four like scale of strongly agreed (SA), Agreed (A) Disagreed (D) and strongly |Disagreed (SD). The respondents are required to tick against the column that best describes their views in each item. The questionnaire will be distributed to ten (10) students from each schools and five (5) teachers from each schools and will also be collected through item. The researchers’ used mean to analyze and interpret the data. Interpretation of the data was based on the following scores interval: SA – Strongly Agreed – 4 points A – Agreed – 3 points D – Disagreed – 2 points SD- Strongly Disagreed – 1 point The output was determined by finding the mean of each number.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Measuring of academic performance of student is challenging since student performance is the product of socio-economic, psychological and environmental factors. Education ought to be growing as a profitable industry with prime objective of maximizing profit by delivering high quality education that produces well educated, skilled mannered students according to needs and requirements of the dynamically growing market. There are two groups of students as generally perceived, that is those who improve and those who don’t improve. Students performance is also affected by different factors such as learning abilities because new paradigm about learning assumes that all students can and should learn at higher levels but it should not be considered as constraint because there are other factors like race, gender, sex that can affect students performance Hansen (2000). Mishae (2001) explained the effect of age, qualification and distance from learning. Place on the students performance in his explanation concerns the readiness in doing a particular discipline in the school; for instance, a student that is not capable of doing sciences in the secondary school joins sciences because his/her friends are offering the subjects.Winston et al (2002) added that the academic performance of student is also coined in the students impatience (this time discount behavior). Yuonne (1998) further elaborated that students academic performance is very much dependent on SEB (socio-economic background) as per his statement, secondary school students performance is with statically significant differences.
Alexander (2001) explained that some of the practice adopted by secondary school administration can also influence their academic performance, such practices like organized study group, debate club, media and culture clubs etc. According to Bello Lawel, an Abuja based educationist a member of the All Nigeria committee of Principals of secondary school (ANCOPSS). The truth is that the reading culture in Nigeria is generally poor. To make it worse, these days, mot of our students hardly read. Instead they waste their precious time watching televisions or films, listening to music, playing to music, playing video/computer games. Another educationist Mohammed (2009) attributed the dismal performance on the external examinations to the lackadaisical attitude of the government and its refusal to adequately fund the education sector. According to him, on several occasions we clamored for improved budgeting allocation to the education sector but all these have fallen on deaf ears. For instance, UNESCO recommends that 26 percent of any country’s budget should be allocated to the education sector but instead what do we have in Nigeria. Government paying lip service to the education sector. Other countries who understand the importance of education have taken proactive steps to adequately fund their education sector. For instance, Ghana has allocated 29 percent to its budget education sector, even far more than the UNESCO recommendation. The same thing with countries like South Africa and Botswana who allocated 35 and 37 percent respectively to the education sector. So until these things are implemented we would continue to morty age the future of our children. Statement of the problem Secondary school students performances in external examinations has been a nagging issues in Nigeria generally and particularly in Enugu North Local Government Area, Enugu State. Language is a medium of institution. For teaching and learning to take place effectively, there must be adequate communication between the learner and the teacher. In Nigeria, English language is a “Lingua Franka”. Except in vernacular, it is used in communicating the learner in all Nigeria schools. The importance of English language can hardly be overemphasized. That is why it appears almost everyday in the school time table.
Unfortunately, a cursory look at the performance of students in English language in particular computer and integrated science in external examination in Eungu North Local Government Area is nothing to write home about. Since computer and integrated science are relatively new in development of science and technology, the researchers would want to find out why there is an always recorded low performance in English language, computer science and integrated science from 2003 -2007 on case study. Secondly, what facilities are available in teaching and learning of the three subjects in Junior secondary school certificate examination in Enugu Local Government Area.
COMPARISON OF ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE, COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INTEGRATED SCIENCE IN EXTERNAL EXAMINATIONS FROM 2003- 2007
