QUALITY ASSURANCE AS CORRELATE OF STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS
ABSTRACT
This work focused on quality assurance as correlates of students’ academic
performance in public secondary schools in Enugu education zone. The purpose was
to find out the relationship between quality assurance and students’ academic
performance. Correlational survey design was adopted to guide the study. Four
research questions and two null hypotheses which was test at 0.05 level of
significance guided the study. The population of the study which comprised 30
principals and 1772 teachers was 1802. The sample of the study was 180 using simple
random techniques. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The
instrument was validated with three experts, two in educational administration and
planning and one in measurement and evaluation in the faculty of education,
University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Twenty copies of questionnaire were trial tested in Udi
education zone with the results of 0.85, 0.65, 0.76, 0.83 for Cluster A-D respectively
and the overall result was 0.90. Direct delivery and retrieval method was used for
data collection. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer research questions
while the hypotheses were tested using t-test at 0.05 level of significance. Findings
shows that School leadership to a great extent has a relationship to students’
academic performances. Further analysis showed that there is no significant
difference between the mean rating of principals’ and teachers on the relationship
between school leadership and students academic performance. Availability of
teachers in school to a great extent influences the academic performance of students.
Teachers’ professional development to high extent influence students’ academic
performance. Also facilities should be made available in the school to enable the
students’ perform in their examination. Based on the findings of the study, the
following recommendations were made: Government should organize workshops and
seminars for school administrators to upgrade their administrative techniques, More
funds should be allocated to schools to enable them provide the needed facilities to
enable the students perform better, Government should organize workshops and
seminars for teachers to enable them developed professionally and among others.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Education has been described as the bedrock of every society and tool for
nation building. It is also a means of preserving societal and cultural settings, plus the
acquisition of skills that make members of the society useful to themselves and the
society (Ehusani, 2002). Ehusani opined that the process of educating is to develop
the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domain of individuals and groups in order to
equip them with knowledge and skills necessary to survive and make the society
progress.
Education is the development of knowledge, skill, attitude, ability or character
with the purpose of making life worth living (Ani 2000). This means that wholistic
development of individual and society can be achieved through the process of
education. Ani opined that the most valuable means to acquire education is through
teaching, imitation or training. Education is the process of inculcating norms and
values of a society from the teacher to the learner with the aim of making them
functional members of the society. Durkheim (2001) defines education as the
influence exercised by adult generations on those that are not yet ready for social life.
The objective of education is to stimulate and develop in the learner; the
physical, intellectual and moral abilities. These are demanded of him by the society
for which he is specifically destined to be part of. Onwuka (2011) defines education
as the process by which people are acclimatized to the culture into which they are
borne in order that they may advance in it. He opined that education involves nursing
and nurturing of an individual so that they will become a full fledged member of the
society. Furthermore, he stated that it is the actualization of human potentials that the
individual can become something more than what he was before or achieve more
goals than before. In this context, education refers to the inculcation of formal or
informal input in the development of innate potentials that make someone useful
member in the society.
For quality education to be achieved in a nation, the principal actors of learning
who are the teachers, learners and the environment must be cooperatively organized
to achieve the aims of the society. The societal expectations of quality inputs from the
training institutions makes the students central in any instructional program. The
quality of staff in the school system presupposes the quality of the school output,
which are the resources that will be available for the school to progress (Ochuba
2009). Ochuba stressed that in the school system, some determinants of high quality
education include goals of education, quality of inputs as well as an organized school
system that ensure the articulation and effective co-ordination of all aspect of school
life.
The worth of any educational system as an investment lies in its capabilities to
continuously serve its customers which are the students, parents, employers, labour or
the society better and remain relevant. Ijayi (2009) maintained that educational
planners are therefore faced with two main challenges: providing for quantity and for
quality.
The concern for quantity and quality in the school system is that quantity
through the admission of as many students as possible to school within the shortest
time allowed should be assessed to ensure quality (Adegbesan, 2010). Adegbesan
maintained that quality cannot be achieved without quantity which serves as an
assessment. Ajayi and Adegbesan (2007) see quality as the totality of the features,
such as a process, product or service on its performance. They maintained that it is not
just a feature of a finished product or services but involves a focus on internal
processes and output which includes the reduction of waste and the improvement of
productivity. In order words, quality is the ability with which a process, product,
service or phenomenon is in conformity with an established standard that makes it
relatively superior to others. According to Eya and Chukwu (2012) quality in an
educational system conforms to the established standard and appropriateness of the
inputs available for system delivery. Quality in this context refers to maximum
performance on education. It means the relevance and appropriateness of the
educational programs to the needs of the society for which it is provided.
Quality input give rise to quality output. Quality input according to Ehindero
(2004) is the systematic and continuous actions of an organization that lead to
efficiency and better output. Ehindero stressed that organizational development is
determined by the number of successful output produced to compete in the society.
Eya (2011) defined quality input as the totality of the resources put into a system to
bring out effective and efficient result. Eya maintained that in educational system, the
students, the fees and other resources are combined to yield maximum output. In this
context, quality input refers to the totality of effort put into education such as finance,
facilities and curriculum development to enhance the students’ academic performance
and also ensure efficiency in the educational system. This notwithstanding, education
remains the biggest industry for any nation in the world.
There has not been significant positive result in our educational system owing
to defects in some major areas. Administrative system in our schools is nothing to
write home about because of incompetent school administrators. The principal is the
executive head of secondary schools in Nigeria (Oboegbulem and Onwurah 2011).
They stressed that one of the most important functions of the secondary school
principal is the structuring of the school for purpose of instruction. The ugly
development arising from poor administration has put the secondary education on the
backward stage.
Another indicator for this decline in the school system is in the area of teaching
and learning. This has to do with teachers and students. Evidence of wastage abounds
among the teaming population of students who repeat the Senior School Certificate
Examination (SSCE) and Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB)
examination every year. According to West African Examination Council (WAEC), a
total number of 1,692,435 students took their 2014 examination in Nigeria. Out of this
number, only 529,425 passed, representing 31.28% of the population. This is indeed a
massive failure.