CHAPTER ONE

                                        INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Our society requires adequate human and materials resources to improve its social organization, preserve the culture, enhance economic development and reform the political structures. Education is often seen as a prerequisite for quality manpower development and creation of wealth, a sure path to success in life and service to humanity. Education is the conscious efforts to prepare students through monitoring, teaching and learning for their role in the future (Adedeji al 2008).

In this regard, education is severally conceived and inculcated by people of varying background, age, needs and aspiration for sustainable development. The potency of education is more evident in its globalization tends imbued with instrumental values of nurturing productive citizens, sustainable development and democracy. Education has been recognized as a process of impacting knowledge, skills and attitudes to the learners. This could take place in varying schools with the purpose of ensuring total development of the children.

According to Akinpelu (2004), education can be defined as the process of transforming cultural heritage and renewal from one generation to another. He stressed further that education is a process of renewal of experience that will probably occur in a deliberate and institutionalized from inorder to generate social sustainability. Thus, making education relevant is a matter of ensuring that it generates, informs and maintains the student vision of life including his/her professional activities, attitudes, beliefs and values.

Education being regarded as the act or process of impacting or gaining knowledge, judgment and a level of intellectual maturity. In a general sense, is a form of learning in which the knowledge, skills, values, ideas, norms, morals and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to another through the process of teaching, training or research Adeyinka A.A (2009), John (Quoted by) as Adewuyi and Ogunwuyi (2002) define education as the culture which each generation purposely give to those who are to be its successors in order to qualify them for at least keeping up and if possible for raising the level of improvement which have been attained.

Taiwo (1980) define education as the training of the young with a view of their growing up and developing into adults who can fend for themselves, live in a society and be of service to that society. Hence, Education is conceived as the process of acquiring skills, knowledge, understanding attitudes and values in problem solving.

Redden in Okemakinde (2014) gives a more explicit definition of education. According to him, Education id deliberate and systematic influence extended by the mature person upon the immature through instruction, discipline and harmonious development of physical, intellectual, aesthetic, social and spiritual powers of the human beings according to their essential hierarchy by and for the individual and social uses which is directed towards the union of the educated with the creator at the final end. Speaking in the same vein, Thompson says that education is “the influence of the environment upon the individual to produce a permanent change in his habits of behavior, of thought and of his attitude”. Environment has various aspects, physical, social and cultural. Education should therefore facilitate the task of adaptation of the child to his environment. Thus, Educational system however, affects the way people of a particular country carryout their educational programmes.

Moreover, Education is the pivot on which the development of any nation revolves. It is very vital to the peace of social, political and economic development of any nation. For this development to be achieved, it is important that educational institutions are properly administered, most especially at this period when a lot of complexities have been introduced into the educational system. The rationale is that every educational administrator and supervisor have accurate knowledge, information, skills and tools that are needed for effective management and supervision of student’s academic performance.

Human organization whether large or small, primitive or modern, educational or non-educational, engages in some activities or operation which leads to the achievement of their set goals and objectives. The emergency of the modern world has been significantly impacting, productive, profitable and worthwhile in the conceptualization of evaluating the price and worth of the education. Thus, educational activities cannot take place in vacuum, rather, in a well-structured formal settings or environment called school.

School being an integral and indispensable element of actualizing the set of educational goals and objectives is the birth place of citizens ideal. It is more important that all the stakeholder in the academic circle be it teachers, the students, the principals, the administrators and lot more should collaborate and work in order to have an outstanding result. Despite all the process involved in the teaching-learning process such as sequential planning’s of the teaching process, organizing the classroom to suit the desired educational purpose, proper and adequate classroom management, teachers intellectual and good oratory skills through evaluation of the teaching activities and lot more. The students’ academic attainment or success is not guaranteed if proper, timely and through supervision is not done in the teaching-learning process especially in teaching accounting subjects in the secondary schools. Ultimately, this is where the exploit of the teaching-learning process lies in yielding the intended result it is vehemently believed that the defect and setback upsurge in the academic community especially accounting circle in the secondary schools comes as a result of laxity in the area of school supervision. The task of school supervision has become increasingly complex within the past decades which call for urgent needs of the school supervision or supervisory teams to make use of relevant behavioral theories and techniques to be able to manage the modern complex educational institutions successfully.

School supervision is seen as the activity carried out by supervisors to oversee the activity of the workers or staff and that of the learners in order to ascertain the successful outcome of the teaching-learning process. The supervision done by the school must be properly and effectively done especially in teaching accounting subjects in secondary schools. Accounting is a subject that involves the process of recording, analyzing, classifying, selecting, summarizing, interpreting and communicating financial data of an organization to the end user in order to make useful economic decision.

On the content of the academic performance of the students in subject, it is seen that their performance of the student in the subject (in terms of academic) demands effective and efficient school supervision as a result of the relevance of the subject in other field of study. Accounting falls under the vocational area and therefore, it is a discipline that is very essential for business. It helps both profit and non-profit making organization, which is it helps the organizations to make policies which wall enhance expansion. It aids proprietors in assessing the efficiency of management and provides information which parties outside an organization to make objective judgement about the organizations.

To this extent, the study is aimed at investigating the effects of school supervision on the academic performance of secondary school student in Nigeria. The finding from the study area may as well be of a general application to other schools in term of planning, organizing and evaluating student academic performance within and outside the study area in Nigeria.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

For some years now, it has been observed with keen interest the sharp increase in poor academic performance of student in accounting subject most especially in senior secondary school certificate examination (SSCE), as a result of inadequate supervision. However accounting subject has played and is still playing enterprise like any other human organization requires adequate supervision to ascertain the pre-determined aims and objectives also to increase future businessman the effects of school supervision must be considered. To this extends this research work is structured to investigate the effect of schools supervision on academic performance of secondary school students in Nigeria.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

Specifically in conducting this study, the researcher has the following as the major objectives;

i)     To identify factors that influence good and effectives school supervision in secondary school.

ii)   To access the impact of effective school supervision on the academic performance of students in studying accounting subjects in secondary schools

iii)  To ascertain the area of strength and weakness of the school supervision on the students’ academic performance in secondary schools.

iv) To find out the quality of teaching-learning materials and necessary skills on the part of the teachers and learners readiness to effect the desire performances.   

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The following research questions were raised to guide the study:

1. To what extent does regular supervision have relationship with student’s academic performance in Secondary School?

2. What is the relationship between class visitations by principals and students’ academic performance in Secondary School?

3 To what extent does a Positive or negative remarks by Supervisors have impact on Teacher’s Job Performance?

4. To what extent does regular instructional supervision have relationship with teacher’s performance in Secondary Schools in Nigeria?

1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

H0: There is no significant relationship between class visitations by Principals and students’ academic performance in Secondary School.

H1: There is a significant relationship between class visitations by Principals and students’ academic performance in Secondary School.

HO: Regular instructional supervision has no significant relationship with student’s academic performance in Secondary School.

H2: Regular instructional supervision has a significant relationship with student’s academic performance in Secondary School.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

 It is believed that at the completion of this study, the findings will help the following groups: Teachers, Schools’ management, Education board, the Parents Teachers Associations (PTAs), and other researchers interested in supervision of instruction. The findings of this study will help teachers to understand and appreciate the importance of supervision of instruction on effective classroom performance as regards instruction. It will help them understand that instructional supervisors are there to assist them and not to harass them. It will also make them know that the way they perceive supervision of instruction can make or mar their classroom performances. This study will help the schools’ management to have understanding about the teachers’ perception on the influence of instructional supervision on class performance. And this understanding will help them realize that the perception of teachers towards supervision of instruction can make or mar the school activities. Since classroom instruction is one of the major school activities in the school and the school is like a factory that processes the students into finished products. Also, it will help the school management to know the extent to which attendance to conference and seminars improve teachers’ classroom performance. This will make them encourage teachers to participate more in conferences and seminars.

1.7 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

For the purpose of attaining the objectives of these findings this study is not expected to cover beyond examine school supervision and its influences on the academic performance of the students in Nigeria. Therefore, the study focuses specifically on the effects of school supervision on the academic performance of secondary school students in Nigeria. In the cause of the study, the researcher encounters some limitations which limited the scope of the study;

Staff Reluctance: In most cases the staffs often feels reluctance over providing required information required by the researcher. This result in finding information where the structured questionnaires could not point out.

Researcher’s Commitment: The researcher, being of full time student spent most of her time on other academic activities such as test, class work, assignment, examination etc which takes average focus from this study.

Inadequate Materials: Scarcity of material is also another hindrance. The researcher finds it difficult to long hands in several required material which could contribute immensely to the success of this research work.

Financial constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

School: A school is an institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students (or "pupils") under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students’ progress through a series of schools.

Supervision: Supervision is the act or function of overseeing something or somebody. A person who performs supervision is a "supervisor", but does not always have the formal title of supervisor. A person who is getting supervision is the "supervisee".

Academic performance: Academic achievement or (academic) performance is the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has achieved their short or long-term educational goals. Cumulative GPA and completion of educational degrees such as High School and bachelor's degrees represent academic achievement.

1.9 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

This research work is organized in five chapters, for easy understanding, as follows Chapter one is concern with the introduction, which consist of the (overview, of the study), statement of problem, objectives of the study, research question, significance or the study, research methodology, definition of terms and historical background of the study. Chapter two highlight the theoretical framework on which the study is based, thus the review of related literature. Chapter three deals on the research design and methodology adopted in the study. Chapter four concentrate on the data collection and analysis and presentation of finding.  Chapter five gives summary, conclusion, and recommendations made of the study.

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