Consequences Of Child Abuse On Students Academic Performance As Perceived By Secondary School Teachers
[A CASE STUDY OF ILORIN METROPOLIS]

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. All types of abuse may have serious and lasting effect on the child personality. A frequent symptom of child abuse, neglect is under feeding which is the most common cause of under weight in infancy (James 1992) people who abuse children come from all ethnic religion, geographic, socio economic and Educational groups. Most abusers are simply lonely, unloved, in mature depressed and angry person. Less than ten percent of them are classified as psychotics or sociopath (James 1992). Poverty and ignorance on the part of parents have sent small children into the labour market. A child of seven or eight years and upward is engaged as house girls, stewards, cafeteria restaurants and beer drinking palours. They are also employed as baby sitters when themselves require such services. Some employers of labour under pay them, make them do chores and other activities beyond and above their physical power. Some house wives use them to prepare meal for their families, they even go to the extent of leaving an eight years old house girl to cater for a six month old or older children while the family is at work between the hours of 7:30 am to 3:30 pm or 5:00 pm in some cases, such young children are left in their care at night and evening when the couple attend movies, shows, parties and other evening social engagements.
In some extreme cases, some children are always engaged to attend to grinding machines to grind pepper, corn, guinea corn or yam flour while some are loaded with heavy items to hawk around the non- pavement streets maneuvering between heavy traffic and competing with other minor hawkers to sell their wares. It is easy for them to be knocked down by vehicles or their wares been stolen from them or sales of the day snatched away from them.
There are some critical situations where some Nigerians employ twelve to fifteen years old female juveniles as prostitutes. They are used to promote their business and win customers for them, money collected from such immoral practice are gathered at the end of the day to the landlord or landlady who in turn gives out commissions to the young innocent children.
Looking at the society today education plays prominent role in the life of an individual, it is believed that without education one is in total darkness, the individual will be ignorant of the knowledge about him/herself, the society and the world at large. No wonder, people all over the world are expected to strive to acquire education especially in a country like Nigeria where great premium or importance is placed on paper qualification/ certification (Ahmed 1996).
Education has been generally acclaimed as a very potent tool for growth and development of economic, political, social and human resources worldwide (Oshamehin, 2005). This implies that, there is a global awareness of the importance of education as the most predictable and significant instrument for sustainable human and material development. Thus, Nigeria like other developing countries in Africa, being aware of the role and relevance of Education, adopted Education as an instrument per excellence for all round development of the individual and the nation (Ocholi, 1999). This fact is briefly highlighted in the National Policy on Education (N.P.E, 2003 or 2004 Edition) with states that:
“Education will continue to be highly rated in the national development plans because education is the most important instrument of a change as any fundamental change in the intellectual and social outlook of any society has to be proceeded by an education revolution.”
From this statement it is assumed that, the Nigerian society must have been well transformed and illuminated by the golden light of education, but is surprising that studies (Akinboye, 1985, Animba, 1991 & Okoye, 1991) revealed that the laudable aims and objectives of education are yet to be fully achieved in Nigeria because of the problems of child abuse which has a great consequence on students academic performance some of these previous evidence linking childhood maltreatment to worse school performance generalizes well to older children in middle and high school and to children to already identified as needing services evidence of the impacts of maltreatment on academic performance in the general population of middle and high school students on schooling attainment in the general education population and on economic outcomes in adulthood.
It is on this ground that this research is carried out to further the study particularly in selected secondary schools in Ilorin metropolis on the consequences of child abuse on students’ academic performance.