INFLUENCE OF EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION OF PARENTS ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF THEIR CHILDREN IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the influence of educational qualification of parents on the academic performance of their children in secondary schools in Anambra state. The study was guided by one research question. The research design used in this study is the descriptive survey method. The area of the study is Anambra State. The population comprised 2794 teachers in the 268 public secondary schools in Anambra State. This covered all the six education zones in Anambra State which include Awka, Aguata, Ogidi, Onitsha Nnewi and Otuocha zones. The sample size for the study is 699 teachers. A multistage sampling procedure was used in which 3 out of the six educational zones were selected through simple random sampling technique without replacement and Awka, Aguata and Ogidi Education zones were selected. Then the proportionate stratified sampling technique was applied to the population of the teachers in the 3 educational zones selected in which 25% of their population of teachers were selected to get the sample size of 866. The instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was adopted because it is used to obtain facts about the past, present and anticipated events and also about prevailing conditions and practices. The questionnaire which was titled “Parental Educational Background and Students Academic Performance in Secondary Schools in Anambra State (PEBAP) was made up of two sections. Section A contained questions concerning the personal details of the respondents and section B contained the items which were structured on a four-point scale of Strongly Agree (4), Agree (3), Disagree (2), and Strongly Disagree (1). The questionnaire covered areas related to the educational qualification of the parents and attitudes of parents towards their children’s education. Copies of the questionnaire were administered on the sampled respondents. The instrument was subjected to face and content validation using three experts, two from Educational Management and Policy department and one from Educational Foundations. The final edition of the instrument was obtained after the researcher effected the necessary corrections required. The reliability of the instrument was determined by a means of test-retest method. In this case the same questionnaire was administered twice after a two weeks interval to teachers 10 from Enugu State. When the first and second result were correlated through Pearson product moment correlation method it yielded a coefficient of 0.90 which the researcher considered reliable since the coefficient was high. Questionnaire was used to collect data for the study. The researcher and two assistants distributed the questionnaire to the respondents. The researcher waited and collected the completed questionnaires from the respondents when they were through with it. However, the researcher also returned back to collect those of the respondents who were not disposed to fill the questionnaire at the spot. Mean rating was used to analyze the questionnaire items, and the decision rule for interpretation of the mean scores of the data is that 2.5 is the cut off mark for accepting an item at the agree level and mean ratings below 2.5 is to be taken as an indication of mean scores within the disagreed level. Findings indicated that educational qualifications of parents also affect their children’s academic performance in secondary schools in Anambra State. Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations are made: Parents should endeavor to do those things that positively influence the students’ academic performance such as organizing extra-moral classes at home, buying text and notebooks for students and that Government on their own part play a pivotal role in the development of education in every country as such, the government of Nigeria should try to provide the necessary equipment for learning, social amenities, well equipped libraries and laboratories, learning materials, teaching aids and also ensure that teachers are paid regularly.