AN ANALYSIS OF SCHOOL LOCATION, SCHOOL FACILITIES AND RESOURCE UTILIZATION ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION RESULTS IN OGUN STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The area where a school is located is expected to affect the students’ achievement either positively or negatively due to the fact that the location is linked with teachers’ retention and provision of necessary school facilities. Thus, distribution of teachers and facilities in the rural schools are not comparable with the urban schools. In most cases, teachers prefer to stay in the schools in urban areas because of the benefits and comforts of the city which include good roads, satisfactory means of communication, availability of books and teaching materials. This study examined the effects of school location, school facilities and resource utilization on students’ academic performance in Ogun State senior secondary schools in Nigeria. The sample of the study was made up of 700 respondents from 50 senior secondary schools from 5 local government areas in Ogun State, Nigeria. The sample of the study was selected using the multi-stage sampling procedure. At first, five local government areas (LGAs) were selected through a ballot sampling technique while proportionate sampling technique was used to select fifty senior secondary schools from ninety-one schools in the selected LGAs in the state that had presented candidates for SSCE/WAEC. Simple random sampling technique was then used to select ten (10) teaching staff and three non-teaching staff with the principals of each school being selected. All together, a total of 5 LGAs, 50 senior secondary schools and 700 participants were sampled for the study. An instrument titled ‘School Location and Resource Utilization Questionnaire’ (SLRVQ) was developed by the researchers with a reliability of 0.76. Data were analyzed using t-test, correlation coefficient and ANOVA. Five null hypotheses were generated and one of the findings revealed that human resources were more available in urban areas than in the rural areas. It was therefore recommended that lots of schools in the rural areas should be improved upon, so that every child irrespective of his or her location will have access to good and quality education in terms of facilities, environment, human and materials resources to ensure better academic performance of the students in Ogun State.