the impact of family background and covid 19 on student academic performance

Abstract

The Federal Government of Nigeria’s overall strategy to contain the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria on 27th February, 2020 has really caused serious harm to the educational system and other sectors of the economy. This paper therefore was anchored on assessment of parents’ perception of the impact of covid-19 pandemic school closure on secondary school students in Gwagwalada Area Council, Abuja. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The sample of the study comprised 450 parents who have children in secondary schools in Gwagwalada Area Council. The sample was selected from ten (10) communities within the study area through simple random sampling technique. That is, 45 parents from each of the communities. The study used questionnaire as its instrument for data gathering from the respondents. The instrument (questionnaire) was designed in a 4-point Likert scale of Strongly Agreed, Agreed, Disagreed and Strongly Disagreed as well as yes or no. A total of 450 questionnaires were administered to the respondents and 448 were validly filled, returned and used for data analysis. Mean and simple percentage were used for data analysis. Finding revealed that parents’ perceived COVID-19 pandemic on school closure to have negative impact on secondary school students. It was also indicated that some children during the COVID-19 pandemic school closure were not being adequately engaged in learning activities. It also showed that some children were engaged in hawking instead of learning. In line with the findings of the study, it was recommended that: i. Since school closure has negative impact on students, the government should leverage the cost of internet services so that children of low income parents can have access to the services in case of future sudden school closure. ii. Parents should ensure that their children/wards are constantly and continuously engaged in learning activities should there be sudden school closure in the nearest future. 

Chapter One
Introduction

1.1 Background of Study

The educational sector like any other sector has faced devastating experience as a result of corona virus which has impacted on its functionality, efficiency and effectiveness. The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic across the globe has indeed caused far reaching negative effect on the educational sector and other sectors of the economy. Though, the pandemic was first reported in Wuhan City, China in December, 2019 but it gradually spread across countries of the world. In Nigerian context, the first case of COVID-19 was an Italian citizen who returned from Milan, Italy to Lagos State. This was reported and confirmed by the Federal Ministry of Health in conjunction with Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) on 27th February, 2020 in Lagos State. Because of the wide spread, gruesomeness and devastating nature of the corona virus pandemic, governments of the world over were compelled to come up with several strategies on how to curtail the spread of the pandemic. Thus, as part of the Federal Government of Nigeria’s overall strategy to contain the spread of the virus, the Federal Ministry of Education on March 19th, 2020 issued a circular granting an approval for the closure of all schools, colleges, polytechnics and universities for a period of one (1) month commencing from Monday 23rd March, 2020. However, as a result of the increasing cases of corona virus cases in Nigeria, schools at all levels have remained closed for months (Nigeria Education in Emergency Working Group, 2020). According to UNESCO (2020), the action of governments globally to temporary close educational institutions in order to contain the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic is no longer news and is most expected. The decision of school closure was prompted by the principle that large gathering of persons constitutes a serious risk to safeguarding public health during a pandemic. Though no one knows for sure how long the closure of schools is likely to last but one can easily anticipate that date will be extended until the pandemic subsides. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on school closure generally and secondary school student in specificity cannot be over accentuated. For the students, the most immediate impact has naturally been the temporary cessation of the face to face teaching and learning. The globally temporary cessation of face- to- face learning activities in schools has been a huge disruptor of the functions of the educational system. This disruption is highly variable and depends, first, on their ability to remain active in their academic activities and second, on their financial sustainability. In the event of a long duration of the cessation of face-to-face activities, it is most likely that there will be a decline in demand in the short term and a spike in the next academic year with fees non-existence or very affordable. As for those who are about to exit upper secondary and aspire to enter higher education, the situation is quite pathetic. They will have no clear idea of how long they will have to wait again. Giving details on the percentage of schools affected globally as a result of COVID19 pandemic on school closure, UNESCO (2020) as of March 3rd, released the first global numbers on school closures and affected students. It reports that 22 countries on three continents had enacted preventive measures including the temporary closure of schools and universities. This has impacted 290.5 million students around the world. Between 13-16 March, 2020, national governments in 49 countries announced school closure with 39 countries who closed schools nationwide and 22 countries with localized school closure. By 16 March, this figure increased to 73 countries. By 29 March, more than 1.5 billion children and students were affected by the nationwide school closure. Others were disrupted by localized closure. As of mid-April, a total of 1.725 billion students globally had been affected by the closure of schools and higher education institutions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As of 7 June 2020, UNESCO reported that approximately 1.725 billion learners were affected due to school closure in response to the pandemic. In the same vein, UNICEF (2020) admits that 134 countries are currently implementing nationwide school closure and 38 are implementing local closure, impacting about 98.5 percent of the world''''s students’ population while 39 countries'''' schools are currently opened.

In the view of Lindzon (2020), educational institutions provide essential learning activities to the learners and when school activities are disrupted resulting in their closure, students are deprived opportunities of social, cognitive and psychomotor growth and development with the period affecting them even beyond the period of closure. Lindzon also admits that the closure of schools disrupts the well-planned and articulated academic calendar and activities which were supposed to have been covered within the specified period. Thus, the disruption results in delay in the graduation of students at all levels. Lindzon further states this there could decline the learning ability of students from poor homes; as their parents may not afford to provide them with lesson teachers or engage them in e-learning platform or strategy. Closing the school system can encourage students to take to gangsterism, crime and drugs. They could also keep bad companies as their parents may not have good monitoring approach on them. The accumulation of financial cost for parents may affect students from poor economic background because their parents may be unable to pay the accumulated fees and other levies thereby resulting in high rate of school dropout. Corroborating the above, Victor (2020) maintains that the human brain functions more effectively when constantly engaged with activities. Hence, the closure of schools due to COVID-19 has the tendency to reduce the learning ability of students. In Victor’s opinion, some students may not likely read their books as long as the school is not in operation. Some may be engaged by their parents in domestic/house chores, street hawking and other activities that may distract them from studying. In some cases, the children while constantly at home may engage in certain social vices such as stealing, keeping bad friends and indulging in drugs abusing activities. When schools are closed, parents are often asked to facilitate the learning of children at home and they often struggle to perform this task. This is especially true for parents with limited education and resources. Students’ drop-out rates tend to increase as an effect of school closure due to the challenge of ensuring all students return to school once school closure ends. This is especially true of protracted closure as seen in the COVID-19 pandemic. School closure has impact not only on students, teachers and families but has far-reaching economic and societal consequences (Baker, 2020). So, global home schooling will surely produce some inspirational moments, some angry moments, some fun moments and some frustrated moments. It seems very unlikely that it will replace the learning lost from school. But the bigger point is that, there will likely be substantial disparities between families in the extent to which they can help their children learn. Key differences include the amount of time available to devote to teaching, the non-cognitive skills of the parents, resources (not everyone will have the kit to access the best online material) and the amount of knowledge (it is hard for a parent to help a child learn something that he/she may not understand. Consequently, this episode will lead to an increase in the inequality of human capital growth for the affected cohorts. Burgess and Sievertsen (2020) observe that going to school is the best public policy tool available to raise skills. While school time can be fun and can raise social skills and social awareness (from an economic point of view), the primary point of going to school is to increase a child’s ability. Even a relatively short time in school or a relatively short period of time one misses school will have consequences for skill growth. The global lockdown of educational institutions has caused major interruption in students’ learning; disruptions in internal assessments and the cancellation of public assessments for qualifications or their replacement by an inferior alternative. Home schooling is not only a massive shock to parents’ productivity but also to children’s social life and learning. Students’ assessments are also moving online with a lot of trial and error and uncertainty for everyone. Many assessments have simply been cancelled.