EVALUATION OF THE IMPACT OF POVERTY ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS: A STUDY OF SOME SELECTED SCHOOLS IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to evaluate the impact of poverty on Students’ performance in their final examinations in Kaduna state. This research used questionnaire to collect data on the socioeconomic characteristics of the parents and the students as well as academic performance of students in Secondary schools. The study made use of Mock and SSCE results to obtain the general performance of students relative to their parents’ income level. Comparison was also made between students’ performance in public and private secondary schools in the state. Based on the nature of data, a multi-staged sampling method was used to select three local government areas from each senatorial zone so as to ensure that the sample size is a good representation of the population of the study. The study employed the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and Chi-square-test techniques as means of   analysis. The results show significant relationship between parents’ income and academic performance, significant difference between academic performance of students in public secondary schools and those in private secondary schools and also significant difference between students whose parents are educated and those whose parents are not educated. The study concludes that poverty has a negatively significant impact on students’ academic performance. The major recommendation of this study is, since poverty has been found to have significant impact on students’ academic performance; the State Government should ensure that its poverty alleviation programme captures the right persons and should be extended to education through scholarships. This will help raise the income of parents and help students concentrate on their studies without any disruption.