School Population And Academic Performance Of Basic School Students
[A CASE STUDY OF ILORIN SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, KWARA STATE]

Adeshina (2004) emphasizes that the issue of over population dates back to 1980s and early 1990 and several attempts were made to check the escalating enrolment to the public school in Nigeria, and these strategies varied form states. In some metropolitan cities and towns like Lagos, Ibadan, Ilorin etc. more schools were established and sited in a strategic areas in order to de – congest the existing one (Adegunduro, 1998 and Salami, 2001). According to them critics opined that although the infrastructures like classrooms were far below standard, the over populated schools were decongested which was the primary objectives of establishing the schools.
    Similarly, Fashiku (2006) reported that some states in the country introduced shifting system to minimize the menace of overpopulation and this policy allowed school to operate morning and afternoon section. According to him, the number of hours spent in school was reduce order to accommodate the afternoon classes designed to cater for other arms and classes stated for the section. Also the critics and opinions it did not spare the policy and conducted that attention span of children is low in the afternoon which may result in poor academic performance.
    Successive government in the affected states including Kwara abolished shifting system, and established more schools built new classrooms and rehabilitated dilapidated one and also employ more teachers as an alternative to minimize over population in schools (Abdullah, 2004). The government’s strides according to him reduce congestions in schools and learning condition improved considerably. This has also led to the creation of school A and B that we have in our primary school today.
    However, there are still schools with high population while some have manageable size depending on the location of the schools. The school in the towns may still record high enrolment in the towns may still record high enrolment in view of rural-urban drift while those in rural area contend with low enrolment. The school enrolment, no doubt have immense impacts on the school lone including teachers productivity, pupils academic performance, class management etc. hence the government annual budget committed to upgrading the infrastructures in school is desirable, it is on this not therefore that this study attempts to examine school population on primary school pupils academic performance vis a vis Basic school pupils in Ilorin South Local Government Area.
Statement of Problem
    It is observed that academic performance of students of basic schools is decreasing as a result of unqualified and incompent teachers, in appropriate classroom management the size of class enrolment also contributed to the decreasing performance of pupils/students and these can be curs when competent teachers are introduced, when manageable class size are available in the context studies such as Salami  (2001) and Ijaiya (2007) have carried out teacher productivity and class population which concluded  that manageable class size are more effective in their professional duties than those with large class size but none of them have carried a study on the school population and students academic performance of basic schools in Ilorin South Local Government Area, Kwara state.
Purpose of the Study
    The major purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between school population and students academic performance of universal basic schools in Ilorin South Local Government Area, Kwara State.
 Specifically the purposes are;                          
1.    To investigate the relationship between large class size and students academic performances in the selected universal basic schools in Ilorin South Local Government Area of Kwara State
2.    To investigate the relationship between the students population and their academic performance in Ilorin South Local Government Area of Kwara State.
3.      To find out the influence of teachers qualifications and studies          academic performance of universal basic schools in Ilorin South Local Government Area Kwara State.