CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The unfortunate issue of poor academic performance of secondary school students in Nigeria has been of much concern to the government, parents, teachers and all related stakeholders. The quality of education not only depends on the teachers as reflected in the discharge of their duties, but also in the eective coordination of the learning environment (Ajao, 2001). Education is an important factor for eective development of any country, Nigeria inclusive. The western education adopted by Nigeria is highly based on individualism, socio-economic and internationalization which are geared towards national integration and development. According to Ada (2005), one of the major obstacles to the development of secondary schools in Nigeria is the persistent poor academic achievement of students. Based on this fact, people are of the opinion that the standard of education is falling in Nigeria. Poor academic performance as recorded in recent years was so great that many students fall short of the requirements necessary for admission into tertiary institutions of learning.

According to Ajewole and Okebukola (2000), a number of factors are said to have contributed to the students’ poor academic achievement in school. The authors stress that a host of these factors may surround students’ poor achievement in school which may include: poor study habits and lack of available resource materials, poor school learning environment, indiscipline, inadequate facilities, teachers’ ineffectiveness, the teaching method and the type of learning environment available for both the students and the teachers. From the authors view, the poor performance of students in primary school may be a reflection of the type of learning environment. Farombi (2001) observed that learning environment may have negative influence on students’ academic achievement especially if such environment lacks good school climate, instructional materials, discipline, physical facilities, has poor teacher quality, type of location of school is questionable, there is small class size and over population of students in classrooms. The importance to teaching and learning of the provision of adequate learning environment cannot be over-emphasized. According to Akande (1995), learning can occur through one’s interaction with one’s environment. Learning environment in this study refers to facilities that are available to facilitate students learning outcome. It includes books, audio-visual, software and hardware of educational technology; so also, size of classroom, sitting position and arrangement, availability of tables, chairs, chalkboards, shelves on which instruments for practicals are arranged (Farrant, 1991 and Farombi, 1998).

Tsavga (2011) maintains that the learning environment plays an essential role in determining how students perform or respond to circumstances and situations around them. This implies that no society is void of environmental influences. The learning environment determines to a very large extent how a student behaves and interacts, that is to say that the environment in which we find ourselves tend to mould our behaviour so as to meet the demands of life whether negatively or positively. In this study therefore, the researcher hopes to examine the influence of poor learning environment on academic performance of secondary school students in Nigeria with particular reference to secondary school students in kogi state Nigeria.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

In Nigeria, many secondary schools are been established at various places by government, private organizations or individuals (Tella, 2008). As a result, teaching and learning takes place under dierent learning environment. Every school has its location, facilities and also operates under dierent classroom condition, but all the students are expected to write the same standard examination (i.e. Senior Secondary Certificate Examination) at a completion of secondary education. It may be reasonable to expect a uniform performance from all the candidates since they were taught using the same curriculum and syllabus but in most cases some schools seem outperform others in all respect. Frankly speaking, there must be a definite determinant that is really responsible for the constant poor academic performance of secondary school students especially in external examinations in Nigeria. To find out this, it has become necessary to investigate the nature and pattern for our secondary schools so as to evaluate the academic achievement in mathematics of students with respect to the learning environment.