Family Background Factors And Academic Performance Of Students In Kasipul Division Rachuonyo District Kenya

Abstract

Poor academic performance has generated concern among teachers, parents, guardians and the public at large. It is looked at as a vital issue because good academic performance is associated with a bright future. In Kasipul division the academic performance, of children has persistently been poor, students have been getting very low grades for the last five years. The blame has been put on a number of factors like teachers, the poor facilities in secondary s chools; however, the parents and the poor family background from which children come have been largely blamed as a single major factor causing poor academic performance in the division. Acola (1995) found out that the family background has a role to play as regards academic performance, of a child. It causes social psychological impacts, which play a big intellectual stimulation of a child. Most of the parents are so poor that they cannot provide adequate scholastic material to their children. Many times students lack exercise books, pens, while for others the school fees is not paid in time so that a child is frequently sent back for school fees. This hinders academic progress leading to low academic grades. Some homes are located very far away from secondary schools. This makes the students walk long distances to schools so that by the time they reach they are already exhausted, and to make it worse such students usually go without lunch. Onyango Atubo (1985) found out that the academic performance of children was greatly influenced by over-crowding, poor sanitation and general poverty, which is the order of the day in Kasipul, say in the slum areas of the trading centres; while poverty badly hits the rural parts of the area. In homes where raising schools fees is a big problem some children get involved in domestic and manual work such as rearing animals, digging, brick laying, others engage in small scale businesses in the evenings after classes and sell polythene bags, roast meat. This consumes a lot of their time that they have no time to concentrate and revise their books. Parents who have not attained substantial academic level see very little value in education. Such parents do not usually motivate their children to read harder or access higher levels of education. Children of such parents are likely to drop out of school.