Locational Disparity, School Type And Resource Allocation As Predictors Of Students Performance In Lagos State Secondary Schools

ABSTRACT

This study sought to determine empirically the extent to which disparity in school location, resource availability and school type affect the performance of (rural and urban public and private) secondary school students in Lagos state. The study involved sixty secondary schools drawn from rural and urban settings across the five zones in the state using a combination of stratified and simple random sampling techniques included sixty principals 600 cachers, forty officials of the State Ministry of Education, five officials each from the six Education District offices, and 300 members of the Parents - Teachers' Associations of the schools under study

There were two questionnaires titled "Secondary Education Resource Description and Studies Performance Questionnaire (SERDSPO) Fonts I, II, III, IV, and the "Societal Impression Questionnaire (SIQy' developed. These are Likert - type scales and were administered after establishing their validity and reliability. The Senior Secondary School Certificate (SSCE) results for the 2002 - 2005 academic sessions were extracted from the records of the sampled schools. Data were collected over a three month period by the researcher and trained field assistants. The responses of the subjects were subjected to Two-Way Analysis of Variance, correlations and Students' test statistics The results of the analysis showed that urban and private schools were superior to rural schools with respect to the availability of academic and sporting resources, Rural schools however, competed favourably with them in terms of socio-cultural resources. Whereas, rural schools utilized more academic resources than urban schools, urban schools (both public and private) used more sporting resources than rural schools. Whether a school was rural or urban (public and private) exerted more influence on the availability and utilization of resources than the one in which the school was located Significant relationships were found between availability and utilization of resources and students' performance Significant relationships were also found between school location and students' performance Implications for policy and practice were discussed such that resources (for academic sporting and socio-cultural activities) be adequately provided and equably distributed to schools irrespective of location (rural urban) or stratifications (public/private)