ASSESSING SCHOOL ATTENDANCE ON THE FIRST WEEK AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN EBONYI STATE BASIC EDUCATION

Abstract

The first week of the term is critical as it sets the tone of academic activities. Unfortunately, most staff and pupils do not resume schooling in this period. This diminishes school outputs and jeopardizes the attainment of its objectives. This motivated the researchers to conduct this study to determine the school attendance rates of pupils and teachers of Ebonyi State Basic Education on the first week of the term; and to discover whether differences exist in the rate of school attendance among the sample LGAs. The researchers relied on official data kept in the State Ministry of Education Headquarters. The Ministry’s officials collected the data using an instrument developed and validated by the Federal Ministry of Education.  Six research questions and four hypotheses tested at a significance level of .05 guided the study. The researchers on permission extracted the data of interest from the instrument. MannWhitney and Kruskal Wallis tests were used to analyze the extracted data. The results showed that pupils’ attendance to school within the period was low, with male (25.28%), females (29.7%) and total (27.49%). The teachers’ attendance was commendable, with males 898(87%), females 2,249(86%) and total 3,147(89%). Furthermore, no statistical significance differences existed between male and female pupils and teachers and among the sample LGAs school attendance rates. Based on the findings, the researchers recommended that Ebonyi State Ministry of Education should domesticate and implement the national framework on school enrolment drive campaign; intensify the conduct of and implement recommendations on the report of effective school reopening supervision; and, engage frequently with parents and guardians to sensitize them on the benefits of pupils starting school on the first week of school resumption.