INFLUENCE OF PARENTS SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT AND CAREER ASPIRATION IN BASIC SCIENCE
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INFLUENCE OF PARENTS SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT AND CAREER ASPIRATION IN BASIC SCIENCE
Chapter one
INTRODUCTION
This study aimed to examine the impact of parents’ scientific backgrounds on their children’s achievement and career goals in basic science. This chapter is presented under the following subheadings:
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Education has been regarded as the key that unlocks the door to civilisation and growth. According to Adepoju (2004), education is the most effective social, technological, economic, political, and cultural product available.
Education is recognised as the single vital weapon that liberates from ignorance, regression, doldrums, and absolute obscurity; thus, any community or nation that wishes to grow must prioritise the provision of high-quality education for its citizens.
Education is widely recognised as being critical to the growth, progress, and advancement of all other areas of a country’s social, political, and economic enclave. The benefits that education provides are numerous, and governments across the world compete to enjoy or benefit from such an unending array of benefits
which sufficiently explains why governments around the world invest in providing appropriate and qualitative education to their citizens. In Nigeria, education is a key driver of national growth (FGN, 2004).
Education thus has a critical and catalytic function in promoting national development. This is why a government invests extensively in the education of its citizens. Secondary education, a subset of education, is critical for the development of human capital.
It is the supply basis from which tertiary institutions obtain their primary clients (students) for admission to their various programmes. It thus assumes that the provision of good education is a necessary condition for achieving secondary education goals.
In 1971, the Nigerian educational system implemented Basic Science, also known as Integrated Science, to teach students at the junior secondary school level, emphasising the underlying unity of science (NOUN, 2006).
According to NOUN (2006), the objectives of Basic Science in Nigeria are based on key sections of the National Policy on Education (N.P.E) that relate to science education in general and Basic Science in particular. The National Policy clearly states that secondary education (N.P.E.) is expected to:
Preparing for a productive life in society and higher education.
It is worth noting, however, that the government intends to make secondary education a 6-year process divided into two stages: junior secondary and senior secondary school, each lasting three years.
The junior secondary school will be both pre-vocational and academic, free as soon as feasible, and will teach all of the fundamental courses that will allow students to gain further knowledge and skills.
Students who leave school at the junior high school level may proceed to an apprenticeship system or another plan for out-of-school vocational training (NOUN, 2006).
Given the foregoing, Udoukpong, Emah, and Umoren (2012) claimed that in Nigeria, the junior secondary school curriculum includes both academic and pre-vocational subjects. Essentially, the focus of secondary education at the junior level aims to achieve the following broad goals:
The goals of the school are to provide a diverse curriculum, train students in applied sciences, technology, and commerce at sub-professional levels, inspire self-employment and excellence, and provide technical knowledge and vocational skills for agricultural, industrial, commercial, and economic development (FRN 2004: 18-19).
However, academic accomplishment among students, particularly at the secondary school level, is not just a measure of school effectiveness, but also a major predictor of the future of youth in particular and the nation as a whole.
Learning is the channel via which individuals and nations can achieve their educational goals (Ewumi 2012). It is crucial to highlight that, in our society, academic accomplishment is seen as a vital criterion for determining one’s entire potentials and skills; hence, academic achievement plays a critical role in education and the learning process (Ademuyiwa, 2013).
Furthermore, educators are constantly concerned about the need to improve academic performance, particularly in the sciences. The abundance of studies on students’ academic progress in the sciences attests to this issue (Okonkwo, 2000; Nwagbo, 2001, and Okoro, 2005, as quoted in Okoye, 2009).
This is appropriate given the far-reaching repercussions of success or failure in science topics in schools, particularly in developing nations such as Nigeria.
This is not only because higher achievement, particularly in the sciences, is the foundation for technical skills that are in short supply, but also because higher achievement is especially valued in a society that places a high value on academic success as a stepping stone to more prestigious occupations (Ukeje, 2000, cited in Okoye, 2009).
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