THE EFFECT OF POVERTY ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS IN SOME SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Education is a process through which individual acquires skills, competencies, and attitude. It is the right of every child to be educated, be it traditional or western. Thus, education is been regarded as culture to man, people and the nation of the world at large. This explains why man has to educate himself and his offspring in the society. Poverty is one of the factors militating against man from carrying out his educational activities perfectly. Because of the various perception and complexities of the term poverty, a universally agreed definition cannot be arrived at. But then poverty according to the oxford advanced learners dictionary (2000) defined poverty as the state of being poor. Oguw Mike (2005) sees poverty as a way of life characterized by low calorie intake, inaccessibility of adequate health facilities low quality education system, low life expectancy, unemployment and under-employment. Leroy and Symes (2001) consider poverty as a major anti-risk factors relating the concept poverty to Nigeria, it will therefore be considered in a broader way which implies that it has be viewed in various perspectives which include one national state and home background. At the national level, a nation can be considered poor when her economic standard is very low and this automatically makes the nation underdeveloped. The economy of a country that does not reached certain stage of development in terms of infrastructure and other development indices. As regard poverty in the family level, we are referring to the home background. Even before the indigenous education or western type of education, the home has always been the agency through which man learns various aspect of life to enable him live a meaningful life in his environment.

The home which is also known as traditional way of educating the young ones is still regarded as the first school of a child before he enters the larger society. The role of the home cannot be over emphasized because the general assumptions that states of poverty in the family or home goes to a long way to determine the extent of youth or students educational development. Education is seen by many as the route to alleviate poverty. There is no doubt that meaningful; education is the most potent instrument for alleviating and eventually abolishing poverty. In considering the effect of poverty on academic performance of students to be precise, the home background is the most important phenomenon that needs to be seriously considered in order to enhance the effective study of the relationship between poverty and students academic performance. In view of this, some factors that needed to be considered in the home or family background are parents academic qualification, socio-economic class and facilities available in home or home environment as well as parent status.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Evidence shows that in Nigeria, the number of those in poverty has continued to increase every year. By 1999, when the government came into power, it was estimated that more than 70% of Nigeria lived in poverty. In recent years, it has been a controversy through in the mind of people that if the poor status of any society or nation, even family can really have an impact on the students educational performance. In view of this, the study intends to investigate the positive and negative impact of poverty on the student’s education in Nigeria. This is because the diversity of the world poverty by different scholars who have used it in their course of study and how it has affected the learning and performance of the students in their educational development. Goldstem (1976) admitted this concept when he said that the fact that much of youth educational development takes places in a circle or home, the child begins to attend school in psychological tourism, an attempt would be made to determine the influence of parent’s socio-economic performance and the poverty impact on students education. There is a group which contents the poor have right to be assisted on the bases of group solidarity. Oijkstra (1984) we know that in Africa, the system of the extended family addresses the issues of poverty in the community.