impact of nursery education on pupils academic performance

Impact of nursery education on pupils academic performance




CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background to the study

Education being an indispensable tool in nations building is a process of systematic training and instruction designed to transmit

knowledge and acquisition of skill, potentials and abilities which will enable an individual to contribute efficiently to the growth and development of his society and nation. It involves all round development of an individual physically, socially, morally, intellectually, and mentally, (Osakwe 2006).

 The unhidden evidence that early experiences influenced later academic achievement has motivated the development of a number of pre-school institutions. More recently, formal kindergarten programmes have been designed to prevent high drop-out and low levels of intellectual functioning that are found in disadvantaged children as early as two or three years of age. Scholars like Fafunwa, (1967) Hunt, (1957) and Yoloye, (1975) and Ministry of Education discovered extensively the importance and role of nursery or formal kindergarten education on the achievement of pupils both in the developed and developing countries like Nigeria.

Nursery education as defined by Omozeghian (1995) is the education meant for children between the ages of 3 to 6 years. The National Policy on Education (2004) sees preprimary education as the education given in an educational institution to children aged 3-5 years plus prior to their entering the primary school.

That is to say that early education is a special kind of education provided in an institution for children, prior to their entering the primary school.

Having realized the importance of pre-school or formal kindergarten education, the government encouraged private efforts in the establishment of this institution. Also, in recent years, the government now sponsors the pre-school levels of public primary schools in the country.

Learning, according to Osakwe (2006) is a natural process of pursuing meaningful goals, discovering and constructing meaning from information and experience filtered through the learners’ unique perceptions, thoughts and feelings. Hence, when a child is born into the world learning commences immediately to enable him get adapted to the new system. The child learns to feed, hear, see and respond to stimuli, before learning to sit, walk, talk and behave like people around him. Day-to-day fluctuations in a child’s behaviour may be expected as he strives between dependency of infancy and the dependency of childhood. He goes further to expose the world around him curiously seeking to acquire knowledge. The drive for curiosity is innate in every child and can be developed to yield greater results by given him early education.

Nursery childhood education experiences according to Barnard (2001) positively affect later home and school involvement in education. A child who fails to acquire early education may suffer emotionally, socially, intellectually and even physically if he is trusted into the primary school without a sustainable early childhood education experience that will give him a solid foundation in the primary school. Therefore for the effective and efficient unlocking and development of a child’s latent abilities, attitudes and other forms of behaviour of positive values in the society in which he lives, early childhood education becomes very imminent. This is of utmost importance because researches on early childhood education have shown that early childhood education experiences have great impact on all areas of a child’s development and had suggested that the first teacher is an extremely important person in the child’s life.

According to Feeney, Christensen and Moravick (1987), early childhood education is an asset of immense value in the later academic pursuit of a child and much more lately in life.

This early experience exposes the child to all fields which make him more apt to learn in the primary level as the confidence in his learning capabilities which he acquired from the nursery school is lifted to the primary school. This eventually aids and facilitates his learning. The early childhood institution aims at developing the  cognitive and affective potential at an early age. Anderson (2002) is of the view that when children are exposed to early childhood  education, they develop superior communication skills, necessary physical ability and social unity needed in adult life and an increased cognitive and effective educational balance.

Having realized the importance of nursery education, the government encouraged private efforts in the establishment of this institution. Also, in recent years, the government now sponsors the pre-school levels of public primary schools in the country.

Thus, this paper tries to examine the impact of nursery education on academic performance of pupils in Ilorin South Local Government Area of Kwara State.

1.2    Theoretical framework

Piaget (1956) spoke on the different effects of the environment on the growth of mental structures of the child which facilitates learning.

He said that the environment stimulates learning and the development of the cognitive domain that the early years hold the key to learning. There is therefore the need for special attention to be given to the sensitive nature of early learning by affording the child the right environment where he will develop the potentials and skills for later life experience and education.

1.3    Statement of the Problem

        In recent time educators in Nigeria have been increasingly concerned about the need to improve on the academic achievement of students (Akubuiro, 2008). In the same vein Akomolafe (2009) asserted that parents, teachers and society in general are worried and apprehensive about the best way to improve academic standards, achievement and performance. Consequently the decline in the academic performance of students in Nigerian’s tertiary institutions call for a serious concern.

The rearing practices which the child is exposed to influences the values, norms, and belief of individuals even in later life. The contents of the knowledge which the child is exposed to early in life are bedrock to later education and life. There is a scriptural injunction that says “train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it, proverbs 22 verse 6. From this injunction, conclusion can be reached quickly that the manner of teaching a child to learn in nursery  school days go a long way to help him through his educational pursuit and even more in his later life. Therefore the problem of this study is to find out the extent to which nursery education affect their pupils’ academic performance.

1.4    Purpose of the study

          The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of nursery education on pupils academic performance in Ilorin West Local Government of Kwara State. Specifically, this study seeks to examine whether:

i.             Any difference exist in the cognitive ability of pupils with nursery and without nursery education.

ii.            There exists any difference in the social skills of pupils with nursery and without nursery education.

iii.          There is a significant difference in the motor skills of pupils with nursery and without nursery education.

1.5       Research questions

i.             There is no significant difference in the cognitive ability of pupils with nursery and without nursery education.

ii.            There is no significant difference in the social skills of pupils with nursery and without nursery education.

iii.          There is no significant difference in the motor skills of pupils with nursery and without nursery education.

1.6    Statement of Hypotheses

To direct the thrust of this study, the following null hypotheses were formulated and tested:

i.             There is no significant difference in the cognitive ability of pupils with nursery and without nursery education.

ii.            There is no significant difference in the social skills of pupils with nursery and without nursery education.

iii.          There is no significant difference in the motor skills of pupils with nursery and without nursery education.

1.7    Significance of the study

          The study would be significant because of its following dimensions;

It would limelight the effect of nursery education on the academic achievement of students in the normal educational rut leading the educators to follow the most beneficial ways of schooling, the parents to go for process of schooling that goes in the favour of their wards. It would also lead to the development of tiers of schooling the best supporting the successive ones. It may also be added that the teachers’ training may take new forms and shapes. The intricacies of learning would also be made known.

1.8    Scope and limitation of the study

          This study is restricted to all nursery/primary school in Ilorin South Local Government Area of Kwara State. It is also delimited to the variable under study.

The psychological state of the students, which include their temperament (joy or Sadness) as at time they were supplying the information in questionnaire might affect their response thus influencing the research result.

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