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THE
CORRELATION BETWEEN SOME INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS AND STUDENTS’ ATTRITION RATES IN
SCHOOLS
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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