QUALITY ASSURANCE AND STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN LAGOS STATE SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL

1.1 Introduction

Quality assurance in education is the efficient management, monitoring, evaluation and reviews of the resource inputs and transformation process (teaching and learning) to produce a quality output (students) that meets set standards and expectations of the society (Ayeni,2012). Quality assurance in other words is seen as the process of ensuring effective resource input, control, refining the process and raising the standard of output in order to meet the set goals and satisfy public accountability. Furthermore, quality assurance in education aims at preventing quality problems and ensures that the products of the system conform to the expected standards. Thus, the quality of teacher education is the degree of excellence of the input by teachers which is basically achieved through effective funding and provision of in-service training of teachers for quality assurance to be ascertained in teacher education. 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

Education has been described as the bedrock of every society and tool for nation building. It is also a means of preserving societal and cultural settings, plus the acquisition of skills that make members of the society useful to themselves and the society (Ehusani, 2002). Ehusani opined that the process of educating is to develop the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domain of individuals and groups in order to equip them with knowledge and skills necessary to survive and make the society progress.

Education is the development of knowledge, skill, attitude, ability or character with the purpose of making life worth living (Ani 2000). This means that wholistic development of individual and society can be achieved through the process of education. Ani opined that the most valuable means to acquire education is through teaching, imitation or training. Education is the process of inculcating norms and values of a society from the teacher to the learner with the aim of making them functional members of the society. Durkheim (2001) defines education as the influence exercised by adult generations on those that are not yet ready for social life.

For quality education to be achieved in a nation, the principal actors of learning who are the teachers, learners and the environment must be cooperatively organized to achieve the aims of the society. The societal expectations of quality inputs from the training institutions makes the students central in any instructional program. The quality of staff in the school system presupposes the quality of the school output, which are the resources that will be available for the school to progress (Ochuba 2009).

Ochuba stressed that in the school system, some determinants of high quality education include goals of education, quality of inputs as well as an organized school system that ensure the articulation and effective co-ordination of all aspect of school life. The worth of any educational system as an investment lies in its capabilities to continuously serve its customers which are the students, parents, employers, labour or the society better and remain relevant. Ijayi (2009) maintained that educational planners are therefore faced with two main challenges: providing for quantity and for quality.

Quality input give rise to quality output. Quality input according to Ehindero (2004) is the systematic and continuous actions of an organization that lead to efficiency and better output. Ehindero stressed that organizational development is determined by the number of successful output produced to compete in the society. Eya (2011) defined quality input as the totality of the resources put into a system to bring out effective and efficient result. Eya maintained that in educational system, the students, the fees and other resources are combined to yield maximum output.

Administrative system in our schools is nothing to write home about because of incompetent school administrators. The principal is the executive head of secondary schools in Nigeria (Oboegbulem and Onwurah, 2011). They stressed that one of the most important functions of the secondary school principal is the structuring of the school for purpose of instruction. The ugly development arising from poor administration has put the secondary education on the backward stage.

Therefore, in Lagos State Senior Secondary School where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Quality Assurance and Students Academic Performance.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

Investigation revealed that school effectiveness and the level of students’ academic performance has been seen to center mainly on quality assurance in school administration. It is very unfortunate that students in public schools face a lot of challenges competing with their private school counterparts. From external examinations to other academic competitions; students in public schools have recorded massive failures in recent times.

The complexities in educational system which led to the use of modern techniques in teaching and learning have made it imperative for teachers to attend workshops and seminars to improve their teaching method. Quality assurance which is the key tool for ensuring the employment of qualified teacher and the availability of facilities that are needed to ensuring that students’ perform better in academics have not yet fully instituted in Enugu education zone which is the heartbeat of public secondary schools in Enugu State.

Consequently, low or poor quality input has constituted a problem to the fact that students are no more finding it easy to cope with their private school counterparts in global competitions, and choose to transfer from public to private schools where teachers are more developed, adequate facilities and proper management have been guaranteed.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to scrutinize the Quality Assurance and Students Academic Performance in Lagos State Senior Secondary School. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To investigate the relationship between teachers’ knowledge of subject matter in the classroom and academic performance of students in Lagos State senior secondary schools,
2. To examine the extent to which the teachers’ moral attitude in the classroom is related to academic performance of students in Lagos State senior secondary schools, and
3. To determine whether students’ perception of teacher’s pedagogical skills is significantly related to academic performance of students in Lagos State senior secondary schools.

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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 relationship between teachers’ moral attitude to work and academic performance of students in Lagos State senior secondary schools?
• Is there any relationship between teachers’ pedagogical skill and academic performance of students in Lagos State senior secondary schools?
• Is there any relationship between teachers’ knowledge of subject matter in the classroom and academic performance of students in Lagos State senior secondary schools?

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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.

Hypothesis One

• H0: There is no significant relationship between teachers’ knowledge of subject matter in the classroom and academic performance of students in Lagos State senior secondary schools.
• H1: There is a significant relationship between teachers’ knowledge of subject matter in the classroom and academic performance of students in Lagos State senior secondary schools.

Hypothesis Two

• H0: There is no significant relationship between teachers’ moral attitude in the classroom and academic performance of students in Lagos State senior secondary schools.
• H2: There is a significant relationship between teachers’ moral attitude in the classroom and academic performance of students in Lagos State senior secondary schools.

Hypothesis Three

• H0: There is no significant relationship between teacher’s pedagogical skills and academic performance of students in Lagos State senior secondary schools.
• H3: There is a significant relationship between teacher’s pedagogical skills and academic performance of students in Lagos State senior secondary schools.

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1.7 Significance of Study

The findings of this study would be useful to all stakeholders in education. With this, policy maker, Non-Governmental Organizations’, parents, teachers, students and other various stakeholders in education are more concern with the employment of qualified and professional teachers in Lagos State.

The findings of this study are expected to serve as basis for further study in this area of concern, broaden student’s knowledge and improve the teaching skills of teachers in various subjects at public senior secondary schools of Lagos state and Nigeria at large.

Therefore, the researcher findings of the study would bridge the gap between academic performance of student in Lagos State and the quality needed for teacher’s effectiveness in handling their subjects across the State.

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1.8 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the Quality Assurance and Students Academic Performance in Lagos State Senior Secondary School.

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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 Definition of Terms

Education: Education is a process of human understanding and accreditation, for the accomplishment of better, lofty and quality life of a state and her citizens. It is important therefore to say that education is shaped and moulded by the teacher, who plays a pivotal role in any educational system.