ABSTRACT
This
study was undertaken to examine the correlation between some Institutional
factors and students’ attrition rates in schools in Surulere Local Government
Area of Lagos State. To achieve this, three hypotheses were formulated. Some of
the major variables considered were the quality of teachers, class size and
instructional facilities. A Rate of Students’ Attrition Questionnaire (ROSAQ)
was employed to elicit response from 500 students randomly selected from 10
schools. Data collected was analysed using Chi Square tested at 0.05 level of
significance under 18 and 15 degree of freedom. The result showed a definite
correlation between the institutional factors on student’s attrition rates. All
variables were found to have significant influence on students’ attrition in
secondary schools within the Local Government. Based on the findings, it was
recommended that funding be increased to schools to enable them not only
maintain facilities but improve on the quality of instruction in these schools
to motivate students to remain in school.
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
to the Study
It is no
longer in doubt that education is a catalyst for national development. This
probably accounts for the kind of attention and huge investments that most
countries who desire technological advancement give to it. Nigeria as a developing
Country is not left out of this race. As a country, she has experimented with
several systems of education in her bid to find the system that suits her best.
From the Universal Primary Education (UPE), to Nomadic Education, and presently, the Universal Basic Education (UBE), have all
been attempts by the different Nigerian governments to provide functional and
qualitative education for its teeming population irrespective of age, size, religion
location or occupation in order to speed the process of her development.
The
Nigerian Government has tried to give high priority attention to the provision
of education to its citizens especially in the first two levels (primary and
secondary) of education as reflected in the launched Universal Basic Education
(UBE) scheme in May, 2000. It has also increased its investments in the sector
and has encouraged private participation in the provision of education at all
levels. However, despite these attempts, it has been observed that Nigerian
educational institutions still experience major problems of retaining students
within the system, particularly at the primary and secondary school levels as
children drop out of school at will without enjoying the benefits of these huge
investments. Nakpodia (2010) attests to
this when he noted that recently, secondary school students are observed to be
leaving school at will to engage in diverse socio – economic activities.
It will therefore not be an understatement to
say that since the introduction of western education in Nigeria in the mid-19th
century till date, the issue of students’ attrition in schools has been a very serious
problem to researchers, parents and educational planners.
Though,
there has been no uniform approach to defining
what attrition is, most
definitions view attrition as a situation where students on regular school
terms withdraw or drop out from school for any other reason other than death or
transfer to other schools before graduation or completion of a programme of study.
The summary of some of these views seem to
point to the fact that drop outs are considered as under achievers, not working up
to their abilities, they are dis satisfied with school, hostile, aggressive, rebellious and are
socially rejected by most of the other students because they are often
considered a problem to the society. Equally too, earlier
researches in the 1970s and the 1980s tended to portray attrition as being a
result of the students’ inability to adapt to the school environment. Recently however, commentators now tend to
agree that individual attrition, whether voluntary or involuntary is rarely the
result of one single factor but rather, a combination of many factors (Yorke,
1999; Braxton, 2000).
Pascrell, Smart, and Ethiton (1993) who
studied the degree of school persistence of 825 students from 85 different
colleges over a nine year period agreed from these studies that, academic and
social integration were found to be significant predictors of persistence for
males and females alike.
To
Phillip, (1 996), Attrition or the incidence of dropout was most likely to be
caused by alienation of a learner in the classroom. . To him, a student who
does not accept personal responsibility for his achievement status is the
educational equivalent of the society’s alienated man, he is of the opinion
however that in such a case, the reason for this alienation could be traced to
either the personal history of the learner, his present reality or his home
conditions.
In
Nigeria also, several studies have been carried out on the subject. From some
of these studies, (Okeke, 1990,
Ekperigin, 1990, Nakpodia, 2010), varied factors were identified as possible reasons that can either
directly or indirectly cause attrition ;
These factors ranged from institutional factors
like leadership style, the non-availability of facilities within a school or
other variables like illnesses, poor academic performance, and dismissal from
school or even the parent’s
inability to finance the education of their children or some other personal
circumstances.
The fact however remains that students’ attrition in schools, for
whatever reasons still represent a form of wastage within the educational
system. This is because of the great financial losses, greater utilization of
facilities as well as lower graduation rates that it usually involves. First, the repeaters will spend
additional time than the specified
number of years required in the school and they would therefore have to be “reprocessed’ within the system thereby
incurring additional expenses and secondly, excessive dropout rate at any level of education would most likely cripple the system and can even bring about
the virtual halt to the educational
system.
To
Odekunle (2007), wastage in the educational system is seen as the inefficient
utilization of educational resources both human and materials which can manifest in the form of drop outs, repeaters, premature withdrawals,
unemployed school leavers or even brain drain. In his words; ‘Repetition and drop out are
major sources of wastage in any educational system (and) excessive repetition
causes congestion at any level and grade in the system of education’.
This
fact is also, attested to by Nwadiani (1988), who, writing on the adverse
effects of dropout on the Universal Primary Education in Nigeria, stated that: “...dropout will kill the scheme.
Millions of naira will go down the drain when a teacher who is supposed to be
teaching 30 pupils teaches only 10, when books bought for a class of 30 is
locked up in a cupboard”.
To some other
commentators, student’s
attrition could also be attributed to the socio economic background of the
students. It is believed that children from poor backgrounds tend to exhibit
high dropout tendencies as against those from higher socio economic ones. Even when intelligence is taken into account,
it is noticeable that college persistence is more likely to come from children
whose parents are more educated. Closely related to this, is the interest and
expectation of parents to the education of their wards. Available records tend
to show that college per sisters were from families where parents were more
open, democratic, and supportive and had less conflicting relationships with
their children. This meant that the children get more parental advice, praise
and the parents expressed interest in the college experiences of the children and
also had greater expectations for their wards. This seems to point to the fact
that parental level of expectation may have as much influence upon the child as
much as the child’s own expectation for himself.
However,
much as the family influence is in determining the child’s educational performance at
school, there have also been indications that the child’s ability is also crucial. Ability and the role of intellectual
development is a vital factor where dropout is concerned. A child whose
intellectual development or intelligence quotient (IQ) is low will always find school very boring due
to difficulty in assimilating learning experiences, this can
lead to his gradual withdrawal from school. This is particularly important as
recently a lot of students are entering colleges with substantially higher
levels of academic disenchantment, they
are frequently reported as ‘feeling
bored’ in class, missing classes and
spending less time on their studies outside of class. The imperative of this is
that admitting students with this kind of lower level of academic motivation
and a history of reported academic boredom, then submerging them in large classes
which seem to be the bane of most of our educational settings would seem to be
just the right formula for promoting their passivity and consequently lack of
interest in school with eventual withdrawal from school as the ultimate end.
High attrition
rates in schools should therefore be considered a serious problem worthy of attention
because, if this is not controlled, there is a tendency that the aims and
objectives of education will be thwarted.
This
research is therefore initiated to examine three institutional factors i.e. the quality of
teachers, class size and the availability and quality of instructional
facilities to facilitate the teaching and learning experiences in schools; to
explore the relationship of these to the high attrition rates prevalent in the
educational system in Surulere Local Government area of Lagos State.
1.2 Statement
of the Problem
Government
is reported daily to spend mind boggling sums of money each year on the
education of its youths most especially on the Universal Basic Education scheme
which is envisaged to be the foundation of any lifelong learning experience. However, in recent times, there appears to be a seeming expression of
grave concern by the public and even educational planners on the alarming rate
in which students drop out from school especially at the secondary school level
without benefiting from these huge investments. What this implies is that if
students do not remain in the school to enjoy the benefits of these huge
investments by Government, then both capital investments as well as the human
resources (students who should benefit from it) are wasted.
Though it is not easy to determine with utmost
certainty the number of students that drop out of our schools because of the
lack of a uniform approach to counting the number of dropouts in the system, it
is estimated that in Nigeria, a sizeable number of students dropout from school
daily and that the bulk of those who drop out are usually between the ages of
15 and 21 and are mostly from secondary schools. These postulations have very
far reaching implications especially when one considers the assumptions that
delinquency rate is ten times higher among dropouts and that they are more
likely to become burdens on the society
. Today, most dropouts are unemployed, and they have lesser chances of securing
jobs than those who graduated, because of this, they tend to be involved more
in criminal and dubious activities thereby becoming not only a great threat to
themselves but also to their parents and
the society.
Though
the National Policy for Education had proposed the provision of vocational,
adult and distance education as a means to curbing this, the problem seems to
persist. It is thus this situation that
t has motivated an investigation into the causes of the rate of attrition in
schools within Surulere Local Government area of Lagos state. The study is
therefore an attempt to explore the correlation between three institutional
factors - the quality of teachers, class size and the availability of
instructional facilities and the rate of students’ attrition in schools within
the Local Government.
1. 3 Purpose
of the Study
The
purpose of this study is to examine students’ attrition rates in secondary
schools within Surulere Local Government area of Lagos State. In particular,
the study will examine three institutional factors –
1. The quality of teachers in the schools
2.
Availability and quality of instructional facilities in these schools,
as well as the;
3. Class sizes in these schools
Attempts
will be made to determine whether there exist a correlation between these
factors and the attrition rate prevalent in schools within the Local Government
area.
1.4 Research Questions
To
achieve the stated purpose, this study will be guided by the following research
questions which will be answered during the course of the study:
What are
the qualities of teachers found in the various schools within the local
government area?
What is
the relationship between these qualities of the teachers and students’ level of
attrition?
What is
the perception of roles by both the teachers and the students? And does this
have any bearing with students’ attrition rates?
Does the
availability of instructional facilities in these schools have any bearing on
students’ attrition rates?
Does
class size whether large or small have any relationship with student‘s attrition rates in the
schools?
1.5 Research Hypotheses
To
determine the extent to which these institutional factors correlate with
students’ attrition rates, the following
hypotheses were formulated to be tested during the course of the study:
There
exist no significant relationship
between the quality of teachers and students’
attrition rate.
Class
size has no significant relationship with student’s
attrition rates.
The
availability of instructional facilities in these schools has no significant
relationship with student’s
attritions.
1.6 Assumptions
This
research is carried out based on the following assumptions:
1.
That the incidence of students’
attrition cuts across all local Government areas of Lagos State - Surulere
especially
2.
That high attrition level if it exists
in schools is not in the interest of all stake holders in the educational
sector and the country at large
3.
That student in most secondary
schools in Nigeria and Surulere
local Government area in particular, operate within similar administrative and
institutional environments and these environments can either have positive or
negative influence on their retention in schools.
1.7.
Significance of the Study
This study is significant for the following reasons:
1.
The findings of this study would be very
beneficial to educational planners and administrators as it will assist them in
mapping out policies for students’
retention in schools, develop academic as well as social programmes, and review
curriculum that will meet the diverse needs of the students.
2. The study will also assist teachers by raising
their awareness on the various needs of
the students under their care.
3. Through this study, parents
would be equally sensitized on the various ways and methods of dealing with
their children and wards and the need to provide good and basic necessities
capable of reducing drop out rates in schools.
4. The findings of this study will also be a
build up on the body of knowledge and past studies that have been conducted on
similar issues. It will therefore be a good reference material for scholars.
5. Findings from this work will also provide an
additional empirical evidence to enable administrators draw workable
conclusions about specific characteristics that are usually linked with
teachers’ performance. This knowledge
should assist them on the best way to distribute teachers across schools and
classrooms. This, in the long run should have implication for efficiency and
guide efforts towards future teachers’ policy.
1.8. Limitation
of Study
This researcher
makes bold to accept that there could be a possibility of other surprising
variables that could be unearthed in the process of this research which is
likely to influence the findings of this study. What is however important and
pertinent to mention here is that this study is already Ex post -facto in
outlook with all the independent variables already identified. The possibility of their being totally
controlled by the researcher in this study may however not be possible.
Furthermore,
there is the dearth of statistical data. Ultimately, what this implies is that
there may be limited materials to do a comparative analysis of attrition rates
with other Local Government areas.
1.9. Operational Definition
of Terms
1. Attrition Rates: Attrition rates would refer to the number of
students who leave the school without the completion of a programme for one
reason or the other. This is usually manifested in high drop out rates,
repeaters as well as any type of premature withdrawal from a school programme.
2. Repeaters: This
refers to those who are held back for the non - completion of an educational
course, or a class, usually a course that has been previously failed. Usually,
repeaters would have to be reprocessed within the school system once more.
3. Drop Out: This is a term used to refer to some one whom
on account of one reason or the other is unable to complete an educational
programme and who has to withdraw from the system.
4. Institutional factors: In the
context of this study, would refer to factors or variables within a school that
are likely to encourage repetition, drop out or high attrition level among
students. For example, the class size,
administrative style, types and quality of teachers, as well as the types of instructional
facilities. Usually, institutional factors are variables within the control of
the school or institutions.
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