A SURVEY OF PERSONAL-SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF ADOLESCENT IN POST-PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN ILORIN METROPOLIS

1.1 Introduction

Adolescence is the cycle of life between the ages of 10 and 19 years (World Health Organization, 2008). Adolescence is a period of rapid development, finding one’s real self, shaping personal values and identifying one’s vocational and social direction (Okorodudu, 2003). Masten et al., (2006) stated that adolescence serves as a window of opportunity to shape positive life trajectories. Adolescent stage is one crucial level of child development that require good parental, teachers and foster care. Without which many teenagers would be engaged and eventually lost in the euphoria of so many unnecessary and irrelevant activities instead of being preoccupied with their education, skill acquisition, value orientation and other domestic duties that would bequeath unto them the capacity for tomorrow’s contemporary development (Adekola et al., 2019).

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

Human being progress through a series of developmental stage and each stage has its character tics developmental tasks. Bukoye (2005) suggested that there are some tasks the adolescents must solve during this stage of development, such as a more masculine or feminine role, acceptance of his physique, and acquisition of emotional and financial independence from the significance others and advancing a social responsible a socially responsible behaviour.

Any period of chance is likely to be a period fraught with problem, therefore, the attainment of maturity and development as well as change and aspirations during adolescent may be accompany by many potential difficulties. The degree of difficulty and individual experience may be function of cultural and societal expectations. The period of adolescence has generated a lot of controversy as regards the problems adolescents encounter. Some findings conclude that the period is stormy and stressful Hake (2002) add that is it is complicated by the nature of the developmental task of this period. Such adolescent tasks include: learning to accept one’s physique, orming new relations with age mates of both sexes, selecting and preparing for an occupation, developing intellectual skills and concepts necessary for civic competence, devising and accruing socially responsible behaviours and learning to play appropriate sex roles. Other findings maintain that storm and stress are not inevitable direct product of adolescent but instead appear to originated in cultural and societal expectations (Peck, 2005).

Adeniyi (2005) emphasized that there are some biological, emotion and cultural dilemmas the adolescent may face. For example, he may experience some conflict due to his increase sex drive and his inability to graffiti them because of social inhibitions and pressures. Through he is no longer a child; he is still treated as one. He desires to free himself from control of his parent but cannot afford to give them up. Moreover, there are many grown-up duties and responsibilities that he is expected fulfill although he does not enjoy adult rights.

The observation of Nigerian adolescents through books and less scientific and authoritative sources such as the news papers, magazine, radio, television, internet, letter, text message, hearsay, peaceful and violent demonstrations, sneaking out of school, unwholesome writing on the classrooms and toilets walls, to name a few shows that adolescents are not achieving their developmental tasks without difficulty. It is probable that many youths healthy personal growth is by omission or commission hampered. The pursuit of their personal growth by themselves, or by other people on their behalf should be a legitimate goal in the society.

Eke (2014) stated that teenagers are in the state of juvenile delinquency that makes their learning, knowledge acquisition and experiences not to be a one-off or one-time affair, but entails activities that continuously occurs during each phase or period of their development. For instance, today’s teenager would certainly become tomorrow’s parents. However, despite this reality, teenagers should not be presently concerned with how blissful or not their marriage would look like but rather be fixated or passionate about their education that would put them in the pathway towards becoming good, able and successful parents tomorrow.

Therefore, in Ilorin Metropolis where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to Survey the Personal-social Problems of adolescent in Post-primary Schools in Ilorin Metropolis.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

Investigation revealed that the child at adolescent endeavors to master skills those are essential for adulthood. During this psychological moratorium, he encounters problems largely as a result of cultural and societal expectations. The culture and society determines who the adolescent interacts with, what age he is expected to do certain thing; perhaps what tasks are expected of different sexes.

The norms, values and belief of the society also influence adolescents in the ways and manner they resolve those issues. These and other invitation could constitute problems for them. Against the background, therefore the main problem of this study is to examine the personal–social problems adolescents in Ilorin Metropolis Post-Primary Schools in Kwara State.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to investigate the Personal-social Problems of adolescent in Post-primary Schools in Ilorin Metropolis. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To find out if there is any difference in the psycho-social problems of young and old adolescent;
2. To examine the difference in the psycho-social problem of Christian and Muslim adolescents;
3. To investigate the difference in the psycho-social problem adolescent; and
4. To determine the difference in the psycho-social problems of male and female adolescents in Ilorin metropolis.

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1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• Is there any difference in the psycho-social problem of male and female adolescents?
• Is there any difference in the psycho-social problem of young and old adolescents?
• Is there any difference in the psycho-social problem of adolescents for literate illiterate house?
• Is thereby any difference in the psycho-social problem of Christian and Muslim adolescents?
• Are the western educations on cultural practice of adolescents in rural areas different from those in the urban areas?
• Are there sex and age differences that impact the seriousness of these problems?
• What avenues to they adopted to resolve their issues?
• To what extent does adolescents in urban and rural areas finds it difficult to interact with the personal-social problems?

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1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

• H₀1: There is no significant difference in the psycho-social problem of male and female adolescents in Ilorin metropolis.
• H₀2: There is no significant difference in the psycho-social problem of young and old adolescents.
• H₀3: There is no significant difference in the psycho-social problem of adolescents from literate and illiterate house.
• H₀4: There is no significant different in the psycho-social problem of Christian and Muslim adolescents.

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1.7 Significance of Study

The significance of the study is to show the interrelationship of education and western education on cultural practice of adolescents and how the problems could be alleviated in the schools, to achieve an overall development of the child.

The findings would help to understand the adolescents rather tan imposing some arbitrary standards of authority which might be detrimental to wholesome character development. An adolescent who is understood, rather than suppressed has nothing to fight and so may not rebel.

The finding of this study would assist the researcher in knowing that the problems of adolescent differ in sex, milieu and age. It will make us to identify those problems have significant impacts on their life. It will also indicate whether the different modes of counseling are required for urban and rural adolescents or whether different guidance service have to be emphasized for adolescents of different age or sexes.

Furthermore, the teachers would benefit from the findings and recommendation of this study because they would be able to understand problems of their students which have significant influence on their students’ bad habits.

The findings of this piece of work will also be useful to teachers, school administrator, curriculum planners, parents and other significant adults who are involved in helping adolescents to achieve adult identify.

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1.8 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the Survey of Personal-social Problems of adolescent in Post-primary Schools in Ilorin Metropolis, Kwara State.

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1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this establishment to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
3. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
4. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
5. 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).

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1.10 Operational Definition of Terms

Personal-Social Problems: These are the physical and psychological problems that inhibit a good interpersonal relationship.