The Effect Of Child Abuse On The Academic Performance Of Secondary School Students
The Effect Of Child Abuse On The Academic Performance Of Secondary School Students In Nigeria
Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Child abuse and neglect are fastly
becoming universal phenomena in the current world societies despite the fact
that child’s rights are being recognized and even to some extent, protected by
legislation and constitutions in many countries of the world. Childhood abuse
potentially has major economic implications for Nigerian schools and for their
students. Even conservative estimates suggest that at least 8 per cent of U.S.
children experience sexual abuse before age 18, while 17 per cent experience
physical abuse and 18 per cent experience physical neglect (Flisher, Kramer,
Hoven, & Greenwald, 2007). Childhood maltreatment, and aversive parenting
practices, in general, have the potential to delay the academic progress of
students (Shonk & Cicchetti, 2001). It, therefore, has the potential to
undermine schools’ ability to satisfy standards of school progress entailed in
the No Child Left Behind legislation (U.S. Department of Education, 2005),
putting them at risk for loss of federal funding. It also has the potential to
adversely affect students' economic outcomes in adulthood, via its impact on
achievement in middle and high school (Cawley, Heckman, & Vytlacil, 2001).
Child abuse has been defined by the
African network for the prevention and protection against Child Abuse and
Neglect (ANPPCAN) as the intentional and unintentional acts which endanger the
physical, health, emotional, moral and educational welfare of the child. Hopper
(2004) also described child abuse as any act of maltreatment or subjection that
endangers a child’s physical, emotional and health development.
Gelles, (2007) affirmed that child abuse includes not only physical assault but
also malnourishment, abandonment, neglect, emotional abuse and sexual abuse.
According to Mba (2002), prominent
forms of child abuse in Nigeria are child battering, child labour, child
abandonment, neglect, teenage prostitution, early marriage and forced marriage.
Kolander (2000) stated that emotional and sexual abuses are highly noticeable
in Nigeria. Oji (2006) observed that babies born to teenage mothers in Nigeria
were 625,024 of the reporting time.
According to Walsh (2005), unwanted
pregnancy has been identified to be a major cause of child abuse in Nigeria.
Many abused children were unwanted in the first place and turned out to be a
severe burden on their emotionally immature or impoverished parents. Odey
(2003) stated that children from poor homes are more vulnerable to abuse and
Todd,(2004) in his support said that Nigeria, which is are known corrupt nation
in Africa is heading towards dangerous poverty where her teeming population
does not have enough food for healthy living. Oluwole (2002) equally lamented
when analyzing the situation of children who are being used for house help.
Child labour is the major obstacle to the achievement of education for all
(EFA) and this resulted in a setback in the achievement of the world target of
universal primary education by 2015.
According to Onye (2004), child
abuse is evidence of poverty. Aderinto and Okunola (2008) equally recorded that
some children reported that they were pushed into the street hawking for the
maintenance needs of the family. That means that they are the breadwinners of
their various families at an early age. It is a common sight in major parks and
streets in Nigeria to see children of school age between 6-16 years as bus/taxi
mates, hawking wares, pushing trucks for money or begging for money when they
are supposed to in the classroom learning in the schools. All of these point to
the fact that the worst-hit groups are children who are at the risk of
diseases, exploitation, neglect and violence.
Although the potential impact of
child abuse is large, evidence of causal effects of maltreatment on children's
longer-term outcomes in school is generally lacking. The current state of
evidence for a link between childhood maltreatment (physical and sexual abuse
or neglect) and school performance is limited to negative associations between
maltreatment and school performance. On average, children who are abused
receive lower ratings of performance from their school teachers, score lower on
cognitive assessments and standardized tests of academic achievement, obtain lower
grades, and get suspended from school and retained in grade more frequently
(Erickson, Egeland, & Pianta, 2003). Abused children are also prone to
difficulty in forming new relationships with peers and adults and in adapting
to norms of social behaviour (Shields, Cicchetti and Ryan, 2004). Although
these examples of negative associations between child abuse and school
performance are suggestive of causal effects, they could be spuriously driven
by unmeasured factors in families or neighbourhoods that are themselves
correlated with worse academic outcomes among children (Todd and Wolpin, 2003).
In addition, not much of the
previous evidence linking childhood maltreatment to worse school performance
generalizes well to older children in middle and high school and to children
not already identified as needing services. Evidence of the impacts of
maltreatment on academic performance in the general population of middle and
high school students is needed to establish evidence of effects on schooling
attainment in the general education population and on economic outcomes in
adulthood.
Using a large dataset of U.S.
adolescent sibling pairs, this study explores the effects of
maltreatment—neglect, physical aggression, and sexual abuse on adolescents’
performance in middle and high school. First, the questions of how childhood
maltreatment theoretically could negatively affect later school performance,
and of how unobserved family background and neighbourhood characteristics might
influence ordinary least squares and fixed effects regression estimates of
relationships between childhood maltreatment and later school performance, are
discussed. Second, empirical estimates from models that controlled for
observable and unobservable family and neighbourhood characteristics are
presented.
1.2
Statement of Problem
Grill (2009) stated that the school
can do a lot of things about child abuse since it has a way of affecting the
school system. The problem of child abuse has long been existing in Nigeria and
has even become more even devastating to society as a whole. That history of
child abuse in Esan West Local Government Area of Edo State is as old as the
persistence of the phenomenon in Nigeria itself cannot be overemphasized.
Children suffered all forms of abuse ranging from child battering, child
labour, child abandonment, neglect, teenage prostitution, early marriage and
forced marriage. And in most cases, the parents are even at the centre of the
root cause of all this social maltreatment. The school though, as an agent
of socialization portends to have a strong and overwhelming influence on the
development of the child, but observation has shown that this essence of
education could probably be defeated if the children are made to continually
suffer the pains of child labour (Martins E.O. 2010). This study, however,
centres on the extent to which the school has been involved in its attempt to
develop the child within the social context of child abuse. And It is in the
light of these, that the study attempts to unravel the major causes of child
abuse and how it affects the child’s educational performance.
1.3
Purpose of Study
This research project has its main objective the problem of finding out the
effect of child abuse on the academic performance of secondary school students
in Esan West Local Government Area of Edo State. Moreover, this research study
sets:
- To examine the causes of child abuse in Esan West Local
Government Area
- To determine the effect of child abuse on child’s
educational performance in Esan West Local Government Area
- To examine the consequences of child abuse on a child’s
academic performance.
- To determine possible solutions to child abuse among
secondary school students.
1.4
Significance of the Study
This study is to provide parents and school administrators with an insight into
how much damage child abuse and especially hawking after school can have on the
academic development of students in general. This study is significant as the
findings will be beneficial to parents, guardians, teachers, school heads and
all other stakeholders in the educational sector, as they will be better
enlightened on the problems associated with child abuse. Such knowledge
may curtail any further action of exploiting the child, especially being used
as the object of raising the family economy. Hawking no doubt exposes the child
to many social vices, thus the fact that the study attempts to create a model
for the proper upbringing of the child in the society makes it justifiable.
1.6
Delimitation/Scope of the study
The study laid emphasis on the effect of child abuse and how it affects the
academic performance of the child using secondary schools in Esan West Local
Government Area as a case study.
- Definition of Terms
The following terms are defined for the essence of this work:
- Child Abuse:
harsh or ill-treatment melted on any child; it could be by physical pr
emotional means.
- Physical Abuse:
any form of corporal punishment melted on a child by his parent, teacher
or guardian.
- Neglect:
paying no attention, not given enough care, leaving undone what needs to
be done.
ABSTRACT
This project work focuses on the
effects of child abuse on students’ academic performance. The study attempts to
unravel the causes, effects and remedies to child abuse among secondary school
students. It was carried out in Esan West Local Government Area of Edo State. A
sample of 100 was randomly drawn from selected secondary schools in the local
government and questionnaires were administered to the respondents. The mean
percentage test, which was adopted in the study’s analysis, indicated that
excessive battering of a child by parents/teacher/guidance; broken homes, child
hawking before and after school and an unconducive learning environment are all
causes of child abuse. Also, it was found that child abuse negatively affects a
child’s school performance; such abused children are vulnerable to early
pregnancy. Ill-treatment as well causes permanent and lifelong trauma, thereby
making children develop low cognition of school subjects. The preaching of good
morals by religious leaders to parents and guardians is part of the
recommendations made in this study. Also, melting out punishment in form of
fines on erring parents/guidance especially those forcing their children to
hawk, and prevention from bad peer influence will help eliminate or reduce to
the barest minimum the incidence of child abuse among secondary school
students.
EDITOR SOURCE: Effect Of Child Abuse On The Academic Performance Of Secondary School Students In Nigeria
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