CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Education has always been an important institution in most cultures and at all times Agogo (2006), quoted Aliu (2001) as defining education as the method by which a society transmits from one generation to the next its knowledge, culture and values. It was further stressed that education is the eye of an individual, is the process by which a person learns facts, acquires skills and develops abilities and attitudes necessary for work place survival. In fact education has become a huge government venture that has witnessed a progressive evolution of government dynamic intervention and active participation (FGN 2004).
With the present system of education, people now see education as a right and not a privilege. This makes everyone to have a sense of belonging in the society because everyone sees him/herself as having a duty to perform. Therefore, it is believed by many people that education is the key to success hence against same background education is rated as the eye of an individual (Agogo 2006).
According to Hornby (2000), a home is conceived as a family living together and the way it behaves, while a family is referred to as a group consisting of one or two parents and their children (Ibid). Broken home is a term used to describe a household usually in reference to parenting in which the family unity does not properly function according to accepted social norms (Wikipedia online).
This research work is therefore aimed at researching into the influence of family units which does not function according to accepted social norms on academic performance of secondary school students in Ohimini Local Government Area.
It is opined that in any class of learner, there must be differences in individual performance. In a class of 40 children, the teacher may discover that children do not equally learn at the same rate even though he has used the same contents and methodology for the class (Mallum & Haggai 2004), therefore; there exist differences in students’ academic performance. However, several factors have been advanced for the causes of such differences in performance, personal intelligence, environment,