The school variables which include the classrooms, libraries, technical workshops, teacher quality, laboratories, school management, teacher’s working experience, teaching methods, peers etc. are variables which has an important role to play when it come to students academic performance (Ajayi, 2001 and Oluchukwes 2000). Hence the school variables remain an important area that should be studies and will managed to enhance student’s academic performance.
School physical environment on the other hand include te building and the surrounding grounds such as noise temperature and lighting as well as physical biological or chemical agents. The alarming increase in the number of students with asthma is one problem that has been posed by poor physical conditions in school.
The extent to which students learning could be enhanced depend on their location within the school compound the structure of their classroom, availability of instructional facilities and accessories.
It is believed that a well planned school will geared up expected outcomes of education that will facilitate good teaching and learning process and academic performance of the students (Lyon, 2001).
The physical characteristics of school have a variety of effects on teachers, students and the learning process. Beyond the direct effects that poor facilities have on student’s ability to learn the combination or poor place for teachers, poor facilities trigger the exhibition of frustrating behavior by students including poor concentration and apathy. It is also a stressful set of working conditions for teachers because of stress and job dissatisfaction are common pre-cursors to lower teacher enthusiasm. It is possible that the aforementioned characteristics of schools facilities have an effect upon the academic performance of students.
Oyedyi (2002) opined that the importance of teachers cannot be overemphasized. This is because teachers play a number of roles. Specifically, a teacher has been referred to as an agent of innovation in very important. This is because teacher education is very complex enterprise. The complexity arises as a result of several factors which include determination of who an effective teacher is as well as what teachers are expected to do. Some of the roles are common to all teachers while others are uniquely related to certain kinds of environment of students or subject matter. Added to this is the fact that, teacher education involves the training of professionals who will educate students in future.
Despite the complexity in the field of teacher education one cannot overemphasized the importance of academic training of teacher of all categories.
This is because of efficiency of any institution depends on the academic competence of the teaching staff and no educational system cannot rise above the quality of its teacher.
It is therefore pertinent to investigate the relationship of variables such as school facilities, class size, teacher’s qualification to academic performance of students in Business Studies in Etim Ekpo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State which this study intends to cover.
Some schools in Etim Ekpo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria carry out the educational activities in dilapidated buildings, equipped with outdated facilities and teachers at time work under unsafe condition. It is not unusual to find teachers and students interacting academically under collapse school building. Likewise students are sometimes left with no option but to receive lessons under poor ventilated classroom, poor lighting and sound system, large class size because of lack of structure (building) and teachers are poorly motivated resulting to decline number of teachers in the school environment and lack of experienced teacher in some of our school.
The high levels of students academic performance may not be guaranteed where workshops and laboratories are structurally defective. However, little is known on the impact of school variables on student’s academic performance in Business Studies in Etim Ekpo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. The prevalent problems have motivated the research on school variables and students academic performance in Business Studies in Etim Ekpo Local Government Area.
The main purpose of this study was to examine the difference between school variables and academic performance of students in Business Studies in secondary schools in Etim Ekpo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.
Specifically, this study sought to;
It is hoped that the findings of this study would be of immense important to parents, educators, and school administrators to reflect upon various factors that help students in achieving their academic goals.
This research work focuses on school variables and academic performance of students in Business Studies in some selected secondary schools in Etim Ekpo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. This research work was delimited to public secondary schools students in Etim Ekpo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. The study was also delimited to school facilities, class size and teacher’s qualification.
Apart from time frame and shortage of finance, the major limitation to this research is the inability of the researcher to cover the whole public secondary schools in Etim Ekpo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State as the title suggest.