THE EFFECT OF SCHOOL DISTANCE ON STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Ideally, there must be some laid down guidelines and criteria that should inform the location of any school be it formal or informal. This is to make sure that schools are located in environments and atmospheres that are conducive for eective teaching and learning. Usually, the first thing that comes to the mind of parents and other adults about the choice of a school for their children and wards, especially at the primary level in Nigeria, is the closeness of the school to the home. This is perhaps a major reason why big companies and organizations as well as some universities in Nigeria usually locate their own primary and secondary schools right inside their housing complexes. Examples are the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Schools in Warri, the Delta Steel Company Ovwian-Aladja Schools, and the University Demonstration Schools. The closeness of schools to the children‟s homes has become a useful consideration in the establishment of schools. Schools should however not be sited close to noisy environments such as markets, hospitals, highways, railway stations, refineries, industries, or close to hazardous environments like rivers, steep hilltops, high tension electric lines, or close to dreaded or bizarre environments like mortuaries, burial grounds, and ritual shrines. Most important in the consideration of school location are the population threshold and the distance the children would have to travel to get to school every day. This has become the concern of the educational planner who uses population densities as a rough index of school location and expansion as well as in the improvement of services provided. Therefore, the distance travelled to school in educational planning should be a sine qua non in the approval and location of schools. However, it piques the investigator that in spite of this, a staggering majority of Nigerian pupils and students are observed to walk long distances to and from school every day, especially in the rural areas (Arubayi, 2005; Duze, 2005).

Another source of worry is that distance travelled to school has some measure of relationship to ills like absenteeism, delinquency, truancy, lateness and indiscipline. A distance of one kilometer to school on foot is considered by school head- teachers to be too long for children between the ages of six and seventeen. If students walk over one kilometer to school, the outcomes would not be in the best interest of both the child and the school because set goals and objectives may not be completely achieved. In implementing the compulsory free education programme, many states in Nigeria stipulated that schools should be located at most one kilometer from the residences of the communities to be served. This was one major reason why schools were opened in almost every hamlet in the country. But today, it does appear that many Nigerian children still travel long distances to and from school. Arubayi (2005) compared distance travelled to school by pupils/students in Edo and Delta States and the eect on attendance. He concluded that the location of a sizeable number of primary and secondary schools in both Edo and Delta States were far away from the residences of the pupils/students and this had some eect on school attendance. There is a paucity of empirical evidence on distance travelled to school by pupils and students and its consequent eect on school attendance in many States in Nigeria, including Anambra, Enugu and Ebonyi States. Also, research evidence showed that long distances travelled to school are among the major reasons for high dropout rates in primary and secondary schools in Nigeria, and the South Eastern States of Nigeria have been observed as recording large numbers of school dropouts. (Arubayi, 2005; Duze 2005; Madumere, 1991; Onakpoma, 2008). Empirical research in the Third World countries indicates that early school dropout is positively related to the distance between schools and students’ homes (Vasquez, 1965, Haq, 1961). Distance from school is related to propensity to enroll and absenteeism. At the primary level, almost all students travel from home to school and back every day; therefore journey to school distance should always be considered in primary school location decisions. If the average distance to school can be shortened, at both primary and secondary school levels, students will have more time to dedicate to school studies, work at home or leisure activities.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Distance travelled to school every day by both primary school pupils and secondary school students has substantial adverse effects on attendance at school. Younger children at the crucial early stages of education are often the most vulnerable to dropping out of school due to the distance from school. Walking several kilometers every day is more strenuous for a small child than a teenager. Rural schools are frequently located further from children’s homes than urban schools, and may suffer additional supply constraints such as poor facilities and low teacher quality. Female pupils travelling long distances to school face additional parental concerns about safety. Children may be discouraged from attending school if they are punished or chastised for arriving late after a lengthy walk to school. These factors combine with others to create significant barriers preventing millions of the world’s children from attending school. It takes a steely determination on the part of children and their families to overcome these barriers.