EFFECT OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS OF PARENTS TO THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY
SCHOOL STUDENTS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Education is the best legacy parents can give to their children. The development of the nation starts from the family. When the family succeeds in teaching and impacting good values in their children, the country becomes a better place to live. It is generally believed that the basis for any true development must commence with the development of human resource. Formal education is the demonstration of such desires to effectively and efficiently build a sound and strong economy.
Numerous factors have been identified in various research studies to be responsible for the continuous declining of our educational system. Various factors such as classroom size, poor teacher-student ratio, in-adequate instructional materials, attitude of teachers towards work and lack of seriousness in part of students. With the availability of more qualified teachers, improved technology and facilities for teaching and learning, educational system in Nigeria is still losing it values. Motivation for this study is based on the fact that some students are exceptionally good in their work, while some extremely bad. When such variations in scores are traced it is more oen discovered that family background is a major contributory factor. It is therefore important that the levels of such contributions and the influence they have on children be examined so that useful suggestions to parents, teachers, educational planners and government could be made. Orhungur (1990) asserts that the cultural background of the family is determined to a large extent by its socio-economic background. As the child grows up moves out to the interest wider society his/her interaction with it and perception of it are largely determined from her earlier, experiences at home. The family setting and its socializing influence would the personality of the child. Nigeria, for instance is a society with diverse ethnic groups with various cultural background in areas like family size, occupation and in extreme cases, religion. These factors pose their own restrictions on educational upbringing of children. The social sitting or mode of settlement of the family and extended family system may equally influence the academic performance of a child and by extension, their educational upbringing.