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. Parents who can afford it are now taking their children to
private schools where they hope to receive quality input while the poor ones
are left out in the public schools because they have no other choice than to
cope with the bad situation.....
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Item Type: Postgraduate Material | Attribute: 73 pages | Chapters: 1-5
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