CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The academic performance of student in economic in secondary school these days has been attributed to many family factors. Many people including the sociologist, psychologists and philosopher have carried out a number of researches into those factors that hinder or enhance student performance in economics. They include poor quality of teaching, irregular attendance at school, emotional attitude of the child to school and school subject, defective physical condition which are manifest in poor hearing, bad vision, impediment of speech, the environment and the social as well as the economic background of the come among other related factors. The raging friction between the school as to which of the two is in fact responsible for the poor or good performance of student in economic examination has enabled the researcher to a take a cursory look at the influence of economic background on the academic performance of student. In his research, Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo state is chosen as a case study. The study is rooted in the theory hat there is need for a close cooperation between the home and the school for an understanding of the learning problem of children. The society has apparently decided for better or worse to educate it children outside the home in separate, self contained, single purpose establishments. Having lived of education from home in this way, to go on and discuss the way they influence each other could be a matter of for they can be resolved, must at the root of all discussion about teacher parent relation. There was a time when parents namely entered school except to assault-looking schoolmaster. Teachers for their part were supposed to be quality of showing no interest in the home to which their pupils belonged.

However, nowadays there is undoubtedly a considerable upsurge of interest in the relationship between home and school, and a trend towards ensuring this interest I various formal organisation and system very many schools have parents-teacher organisation many areas have action groups of one sort of another, you have the national confederation of parent teacher association and the advisory centre for education, all of whom are very much concerned with home school links for the purpose of educational achievement of children. Similarly, it has been accepted that learning can occur in many different settings, in the home and play ground, for example as well as in the classroom. Every child bring with him into the class room all his ear her home training and experience, a kind of internal environment that makes him an environmental factors of considerable significance to others. A learning environment is therefore more than that can be measured in the students immediate physical surrounding, it includes everything inside and outside the space the child occupies which in any way affects his behaviour during a particular learning routine. Economic background characteristics associated with academic performance and intelligence can be divided into two status variable high economic status and low economic status. Both status are determined by the level of education, occupation, and income in the society. These variables though interesting, tell little about how their effect are mediated to child and into process variables, such as achievement process of parents, home language models, academic home guidance and social participation of family. It is believed that the level of education determines income and occupation of an individual. This is in turn determines the persons status.

But this is not so again because of his health. So because of this variance, the researches will look at the relationship between academic performance and these variables. The size of the family will not be le out in the research as one of the variable. Though social class in most oen used as a child economic background variable in western European societies and north America, it is rather diicult, if not impossible at this stage to use the social class variable in the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Nigeria in particular in the same way as it is used in western European countries. Two reasons can be suggested for this, firstly, there has not been any attempt classify occupations in these developing countries. Secondly, and perhaps the more important reasons is that the social system of the extended family in these developing country would make social class based on occupation meaningless for instance a man in a developing country in a good job with a very salary per annum, may not afford to live a middle class family probably because a lot of people depend on his single salary for their existence so because of this, the size of the family will be looked at as one of the variable. The different kinds of family-polygamous and monogamous will not be left out in this research.