CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The trend in the academic performance of secondary school students in Nigeria and Akwa Ibom State in particular in the last two decades has become a major source of concern to all stakeholders in the education sector. This is so because of the great importance that education has on the national development of the country. There is a consensus of opinion about the fallen standard of education in Nigeria (Adebule, 2004). Parents and government are in agreement that their huge investment on education is not yielding the desired dividend (Adegbite, 2005). There is mass decline in the achievement of students in both National Examination Council (NECO) and the West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE),( Dawa, Adamu and Olayomi ,2005). The annual releases of Senior Secondary Certificate Examination results (SSCE) conducted by West African Examination Council (WAEC) depicts the problematic nature and generalization of poor secondary school students’ achievement in different school subjects especially mathematics and English language among secondary school students (Adesemowo, 2005). Emotional Intelligence

Education, no doubt, remains the most outstanding development priority area in the world today. The core purpose of education, unquestionably, is human development. Other things being equal, an educated person who is well or relevantly positioned in the socio-economic, cultural and political milieu is expected to be a valuable asset to the society than another individual who is illiterate and perhaps ignorant. This simple fact explains why researchers and scholars, all over the world, continue to do research into ways of improving human knowledge and development. Debates on education and human development more generally can hardly be a boring exercise. The socio-political, economic and technological developments, which bring about a high frequency of innovations and reforms, have all combined to make discussions or debates on education and human development trendy exciting and unending. Emotional Intelligence

Poor academic performance t is an achievement that is adjudged by the examiner as falling below an expected standard. Academic failure is not only frustrating to the students and the parents, its effects are equally grave on the society in terms of dearth of manpower in all spheres of the economy and polity (Aremu, 2000). Morakinyo (2003) agrees that the falling level of academic achievement is attributable to teacher’s non-use of verbal reinforcement strategy. Adegbite (2005) found out that the attitude of some teachers to their job is reflected in their poor attendance to lessons, lateness to school, unsavory comments about student’s performance that could damage their ego, poor method of teaching and the likes. Edun and Akanji (2008) asserted that poor academic achievement among our students is usually attributed to the school authority and teachers’ attitude to their work. Emotional Intelligence.