The importance of education cannot be overemphasized. In fact education is the key legacy any proud parents or guardians can bequeath to their children or wards. It is no wonder that people are very careful in choosing schools where they intend to enroll their children. In looking for school for a child, what is most paramount on the mind of a parent is which school is good in terms of quality of academic instructions.
Rating of schools according to their performances in external examinations is one of the yardsticks parents consider in deciding which school is best for their children or wards. All over the world the story is the same that schools are not rated the same. In fact based on the public judgment or opinion, parents often go to any length in search of schools with good facilities and records of good performances in both internal and external examinations.
Apart from physical structure, some experts in education are also of the opinion that teachers employed should be qualified educationists with interest to teach. In this case many experts in education believe that parents and guardians should go beyond physical structure while looking for schools to enroll their children and awards.
Schools are further rated on the basis of performances in various Subjects. For example, one often hears that school A is better than school B in Mathematics and Science Subjects, while the School B is better than School A in English language and Liberal arts. Whatever the focus of these comparative statements, there remains the facts that schools do vary in terms of average student achievement.
Why is it then that some schools have high average student achievement? The reasons are not far-fetched. One of the reasons is that some schools are located in privileged areas in the sense that the students come from homes where parents care about the children’s education, ensure that the children are well fed, shown interest in their school work and provide easy access to books in the home. On the other hand, there are schools which serve less privilege communities and whose students come from homes where parents are unable to provide the necessary support services for good academic work. Students in the first type of school would generally have a higher rate of achievement than those in the second type.
Another difference in academic achievement between schools is how well the schools are equipped. Schools that have good laboratories and libraries, ample space, places to sit and write for every student and optimum-sized classrooms usually record a higher standard of student achievement than those schools where the basic equipment is lacking or where the students are crammed into inadequate space.
The quality of teachers also has to do with the differences in students’ performances in various schools. A teacher that does not have a good grasp of his subject or is not committed to his or her job cannot produce outstanding students. On the other hand, students will generally attain a high standard where the teacher is an expert in his field, knows how to structure the material to be learned, demands a lot from his students and motivates them.
Also, school Management’s policies have been found to have affected student achievements. Students perform better in schools where the leadership is enthusiastic and creative than in schools where the principals and teachers adopt a casual attitude to their jobs.
Another notable thing is, discipline is difficult to be separated from the learning process and this is often seen from the perspective of general student behaviour. Where students show disregard for the rules and regulations that guide good learning and choose to disobeying their teachers, neglecting their homework or playing truancy, they cannot make any reasonable academic progress. On the other hand, students who comport themselves well have laid a good foundation for academic success.
Aminat Adesope is one of our Staff Writers.
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