THE CORRELATION BETWEEN SOME INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS AND STUDENTS ATTRITION RATES IN SCHOOLS
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between some institutional factors and student attrition rates in schools in the Surulere Local Government Area of Lagos State. Three hypotheses were developed to accomplish this. The quality of teachers, class size, and instructional facilities were among the major variables considered. A Rate of Students’ Attrition Questionnaire (ROSAQ) was used to elicit responses from 500 students drawn at random from ten different schools.
The data collected was analyzed using Chi Square at the 0.05 level of significance for degrees of freedom of 18 and 15. The findings revealed a clear relationship between institutional factors and student attrition rates. All variables were discovered to have a significant impact on student attrition in secondary schools within the Local Government.
Based on the findings, it was recommended that school funding be increased in order for them to not only maintain facilities but also improve the quality of instruction in order to motivate students to stay in school.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Study’s Background
There is no longer any doubt that education is a driving force behind national development. This most likely explains the level of attention and large investments that most countries seeking technological advancement devote to it. Nigeria, as a developing country, is not excluded from the race.
She has experimented with various educational systems as a country in order to find the system that best suits her. From Universal Primary Education (UPE) to Nomadic Education, and now, Universal Basic Education (UBE), various Nigerian governments have attempted to provide functional and qualitative education for its teeming population, regardless of age, size, religion, location, or occupation, in order to accelerate the process of her development.
The Nigerian government has attempted to give high priority to the provision of education to its citizens, particularly at the first two levels of education (primary and secondary), as reflected in the May 2000 launch of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) scheme. It has also increased its investments in the sector and encouraged private participation in education at all levels.
Despite these efforts, it has been observed that Nigerian educational institutions continue to face significant challenges in retaining students within the system, particularly at the primary and secondary school levels, as children drop out at will, failing to reap the benefits of these massive investments.
Nakpodia (2010) attests to this when he notes that secondary school students have recently been observed leaving school at will to engage in a variety of socioeconomic activities.
It is therefore not an exaggeration to say that, from the introduction of western education in Nigeria in the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, the issue of student attrition in schools has been a major concern for researchers, parents, and educational planners.
Though there has been no uniform approach to defining attrition, most definitions view attrition as a situation in which students withdraw or drop out of school for any reason other than death or transfer to other schools before graduation or completion of a program of study during regular school terms.
Some of these perspectives appear to indicate that dropouts are considered underachievers, not working up to their abilities, dissatisfied with school, hostile, aggressive, rebellious, and socially rejected by the majority of other students because they are frequently viewed as a problem to society.
Similarly, earlier studies from the 1970s and 1980s tended to portray attrition as a result of students’ inability to adapt to the school environment. However, commentators have recently agreed that individual attrition, whether voluntary or involuntary, is rarely the result of a single factor, but rather the result of a combination of many factors (Yorke, 1999; Braxton, 2000).
Pascrell, Smart, and Ethiton (1993), who studied the degree of school persistence of 825 students from 85 different colleges over a nine-year period, found academic and social integration to be significant predictors of persistence for both males and females.
According to Phillip (1996,) attrition or the incidence of dropout was most likely caused by a learner’s alienation in the classroom. To him, a student who does not accept personal responsibility for his achievement status is the educational equivalent of society’s alienated man;
however, he believes that in such a case, the reason for this alienation can be traced to either the learner’s personal history, his current reality, or his home circumstances.
Several studies on the subject have also been conducted in Nigeria. Various factors were identified as possible reasons that can either directly or indirectly cause attrition in some of these studies (Okeke, 1990, Ekperigin, 1990, Nakpodia, 2010); these factors ranged from institutional factors like leadership style, the non-availability of facilities within a school, or other variables like illnesses, poor academic performance, and dismissal from school, or even the parent’s inability to finance their children’s education.
The fact remains, however, that student attrition in schools, for whatever reason, remains a form of waste within the educational system. This is due to the significant financial losses, increased facility utilization, and lower graduation rates that it typically entails.
First, repeaters will spend more time in school than the specified number of years required, and they will have to be “reprocessed” within the system, incurring additional costs. Second, an excessive dropout rate at any level of education will most likely cripple the system and can even bring the educational system to a halt.
According to Odekunle (2007), educational waste is defined as the inefficient use of educational resources, both human and material, which can manifest as dropouts, repeaters, premature withdrawals, unemployed school leavers, or even brain drain. ‘Repetition and drop out are major sources of waste in any educational system (and) excessive repetition causes congestion at any level and grade in the educational system,’ he says.
This fact is also attested to by Nwadiani (1988), who stated in a paper on the negative effects of dropout on Universal Primary Education in Nigeria, “…dropout will kill the scheme.” Millions of naira will be squandered when a teacher who is supposed to teach 30 students teaches only 10, and when books purchased for a class of 30 are locked up in a cupboard.”
According to some other commentators, student attrition could also be attributed to the students’ socioeconomic backgrounds. It is believed that children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have higher dropout rates than those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds.
Even when intelligence is taken into account, it is clear that children with more educated parents are more likely to persist in college. This is closely related to parents’ interest in and expectation of their children’s education. According to available data, college per sisters came from families where their parents were more open, democratic, and supportive, and had less conflicting relationships with their children.
This meant that the children received more parental advice and praise, and that the parents were interested in their children’s college experiences and had higher expectations for their wards. This appears to indicate that parental level of expectation may have as much influence on the child as the child’s own level of expectation for himself.
However, as important as family influences are in determining a child’s educational performance at school, there are indications that the child’s ability is also important. When it comes to dropouts, ability and the role of intellectual development are critical factors.
A child with a low intellectual development or intelligence quotient (IQ) will always find school boring due to difficulty assimilating learning experiences, which may lead to his gradual withdrawal from school. This is especially important because many students are entering college with significantly higher levels of academic disenchantment; they are frequently reported as ‘feeling bored’ in class, missing classes, and devoting less time to their studies outside of class.
The imperative of this is that admitting students with this low level of academic motivation and a history of reported academic boredom, then submerging them in large classes, which seem to be the bane of most of our educational settings, appears to be just the right formula for promoting passivity and, as a result, lack of interest in school, with eventual withdrawal from school as the ultimate end result.
High attrition rates in schools should therefore be regarded as a serious problem deserving of attention, because if not addressed, the aims and objectives of education are likely to be thwarted.
The purpose of this research is to investigate three institutional factors, namely the quality of teachers, class size, and the availability and quality of instructional facilities to facilitate teaching and learning experiences in schools; and to investigate the relationship between these factors and the high attrition rates prevalent in the educational system in Surulere Local Government Area of Lagos State.
1.2 Problem Description
The government is reported to spend mind-boggling sums of money each year on the education of its youth, particularly on the Universal Basic Education scheme, which is intended to serve as the foundation for any lifelong learning experience.
However, there appears to be a growing public and even educational planner concern about the alarming rate at which students drop out of school, particularly at the secondary school level, without benefiting from these massive investments. This means that if students do not stay in school to reap the benefits of the government’s massive investments, both capital and human resources (students who should benefit from them) are squandered.
Though it is difficult to determine with certainty the number of students who drop out of our schools due to the lack of a uniform approach to counting the number of dropouts in the system, it is estimated that in Nigeria, a sizable number of students drop out from school on a daily basis, with the majority of those who drop out being between the ages of 15 and 21 and mostly from secondary schools.
These hypotheses have far-reaching implications, especially when one considers the assumptions that dropouts have a tenfold higher delinquency rate and are more likely to become burdens on society.
Today, the majority of dropouts are unemployed, and they have fewer chances of securing jobs than those who graduated. As a result, they are more likely to engage in criminal and dubious activities, posing a serious threat not only to themselves but also to their parents and society.
Despite the fact that the National Policy for Education proposed providing vocational, adult, and distance education as a means of mitigating this, the problem appears to persist. As a result of this situation, an investigation into the causes of the high rate of attrition in schools in the Surulere
Local Government Area of Lagos State has been launched. The study aims to investigate the relationship between three institutional factors – teacher quality, class size, and the availability of instructional facilities – and the rate of student attrition in schools within the Local Government.
1.3 The Study’s Purpose
The goal of this study is to look at student attrition rates in secondary schools in Lagos State’s Surulere Local Government Area. The study will focus on three institutional factors in particular –
1. The caliber of teachers in schools
2. The availability and quality of educational facilities in these schools, as well as the;
3. These schools’ class sizes
Attempts will be made to determine whether there is a link between these factors and the attrition rate in schools in the Local Government area.
1.4 Research Issues
This study will be guided by the following research questions, which will be answered during the course of the study, to achieve the stated purpose:
What characteristics of teachers can be found in the various schools in the local government area?
What is the relationship between these teacher characteristics and student attrition?
What are the teachers’ and students’ perspectives on roles? And how does this relate to student dropout rates?
Is there any relationship between the availability of instructional facilities in these schools and student attrition rates?
Is there a relationship between class size, whether large or small, and student attrition rates in schools?
1.5 Hypotheses for Research
The following hypotheses were developed and tested during the course of the study to determine the extent to which these institutional factors correlate with student attrition rates:
There is no significant relationship between teacher quality and student attrition.
There is no correlation between class size and student attrition rates.
The availability of instructional facilities in these schools has no bearing on student attrition.
Assumptions (1.6)
This investigation is based on the following assumptions:
1. The prevalence of student attrition is widespread across all local government areas in Lagos State, with Surulere in particular.
2. A high attrition rate in schools, if it exists, is not in the best interests of all stakeholders in the educational sector and the country as a whole.
3. That students in most secondary schools in Nigeria, and particularly in the Surulere local government area, operate in similar administrative and institutional environments, and that these environments can have a positive or negative impact on their retention in school.
1.7. Importance of the Research
This research is important for the following reasons:
1. The study’s findings will be very useful to educational planners and administrators because they will help them map out policies for student retention in schools, develop academic and social programs, and review curriculum that will meet the diverse needs of the students.
2. The research will also help teachers by raising their awareness of the various needs of the students in their care.
3. Through this study, parents will be equally sensitized to the various ways and methods of dealing with their children and wards, as well as the importance of providing good and basic necessities capable of reducing school dropout rates.
4. The findings of this study will also contribute to the body of knowledge and previous studies on similar issues. As a result, it will serve as an excellent source of information for academics.
5. The findings of this study will also provide additional empirical evidence for administrators to draw actionable conclusions about specific characteristics that are typically associated with teacher performance. This knowledge should help them decide how to best distribute teachers across schools and classrooms. In the long run, this should have an impact on efficiency and help guide efforts toward future teacher policy.
1.8.Study Limitation
This researcher takes the risk of accepting that other unexpected variables may be discovered during the course of this research, which may influence the findings of this study. What is important to note here is that this study is already ex post facto in nature, with all of the independent variables identified. However, it is possible that they will not be completely controlled by the researcher in this study.
There is also a scarcity of statistical data. Finally, this means that there may be insufficient materials to conduct a comparative analysis of attrition rates with other Local Government areas.
1.9.Terms with Operational Definitions
1. Attrition Rates: Attrition rates refer to the number of students who leave school before finishing a program for one reason or another. This is typically manifested by high dropout rates, repeaters, and any type of early withdrawal from a school program.
2. Repeaters: These are people who are held back because they did not complete an educational course or a class, usually one that they had previously failed. Typically, repeaters would need to be reprocessed within the school system.
3. Drop Out: This is a term used to describe someone who is unable to complete an educational program for one reason or another and must withdraw from the system.
4. Institutional factors: In the context of this study, institutional factors refer to factors or variables within a school that are likely to encourage student repetition, drop out, or high attrition. For example, class size, administrative style, teacher types and quality, and instructional facility types. Institutional factors are typically variables under the control of the school or institutions.
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