Influence of family background on students’ drop out from secondary schools in Yakurr local government area.

Abstract

The study examined the influence of family background on students’ dropout from secondary schools in Yakurr local government area of Cross River State. The study adopted the descriptive survey design and paired t-test and independent t-test were used in analyzing the data collected. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire known as the family background and students’ dropout questionnaire (FBSSDQ)made by the researcher. One hundred and fifty (150) students were randomly sampled from five (5) selected secondary schools from the study area. Fifty (50) students were used for trial testing outside the population of the study. Kuder Richardson 20 (KR20) reliability estimate was used to determine the reliability indices of the three sub variables as follows: family size = 0.78, parents’ attitude = 0.81 and parents’ socio-economic/educational status = 0.73 respectively. The results showed students do drop out from schools and that this situation is attributed to certain factors such as family size, parents’ attitude, parents’ socio-economic status and educational background. It was recommended that parents should be fully educated on population size and education, there should be a massive education campaign to enlighten the parents and the general society on alternative ways of checking school dropout and the government should not shift the whole responsibility of financing education to parents since most of the parents are financially handicap and poor. Keyword: family size, parents’ attitude, parents’ socio-economic status, dropout.