ABSTRACT

Education is a key factor to the development of any nation in the world. It has been the intension of the government that all KCPE candidates join secondary schools. Since 2003, the government has been providing funds to all secondary schools to promote access and education standards in all parts of the country. However, quite a number of secondary schools have been performing poorly in KCPE. In Yaba, L.G.A, the average KCPE performance in 2011 was 222.5 marks. The problem is that parents seem to have a lot of influence in students’ academic performance in secondary schools. The study was guided by the general system theory which is based on the work of a biologist Ludwing van Bartalanify and social system theory. The purpose of the study was to investigate the parental motivation on academic performance in secondary schools in Yaba, L.G.A. The objectives of the study were therefore to establish parental roles, parental economic factors, cultural practices and parental background influencing academic performance in secondary schools in Yaba, L.G.A. A descriptive survey was used in the study. The target population was 40 secondary schools. There were 8 secondary schools headed by female teachers and 32 secondary schools headed by male teachers. The 25% used to select both female and male head teachers would match with that used to determine the sample size.  The two secondary schools headed by female teachers and the eight secondary schools headed by male teachers were selected among 8 and 32 secondary schools respectively by systematic (or interval) sampling. The district had 800 teachers with an average of 20 teachers per school. There were 2960 standard 8 students with an average of 74 students per school. Purposive sampling was used to select the head teacher in each sampled secondary school. The researcher selected 20% of both teachers (4) and standard 8 students (14). Different questionnaires were administered to the head teachers, teachers and standard 8 students. The researcher administered the questionnaires personally after piloting. The instruments were piloted in two secondary schools to test degree of their reliability using test re-test method. The two secondary schools used in the piloting were not included in the actual study. After the quantitative data was collected, it was analyzed using descriptive statistics and presented in tables. The following were the findings of the study: There are parental roles which affect the academic performance of students. Also, economic factors and cultural practices among parents adversely affect academic performance. Parental back ground also affects students’ academic performance. In conclusion, parental roles like meeting attendance, disciplining students, control of absenteeism, cultivation of respect for teachers and parents being role models have not been played well by parents. These affect academic performance of students. Economic factors like ability to pay fees, ability to supplement reading materials by parents, presence of child labour at home and provision of basic needs to students affect academic performance. Cultural practices like FGM, early marriages and attitude towards education also affect academic performance. The back ground of parents also affects the academic performance.  The following recommendations were made: Parents should always discourage absenteeism of students from school, respect for teachers should be cultivated by parents to enhance learning, parents should be educated on the need to create a conducive home environment for their children and students should not be abused at home to promote learning.