Effect Of Gender And Families Socio-economic Status On Academic Performance Of Secondary School Students
[IN IDEMILI - SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF ANAMBRA STATE]

Wikipedia encyclopedia stated that when placing a family or individual into one of these categories, any or all of the three variables income, education, and occupation must be assessed. Income refers to wages, salaries, profits, rents, and any flow of earnings received. Income can also come in the form of workers compensation, social security, pensions, interests or dividends, royalties, trusts, or other governmental, public, or family financial assistance. Education also plays a role in income. Median earnings increase with each level of education. The highest degrees, professional and doctoral degrees for instance, make the highest weekly earnings while those without a high school diploma are financially penalized. Higher levels of education are associated with better economic and psychological outcomes (i.e. more income, more control, and greater social support and networking). Occupational prestige as one component of socio-economic status encompasses both income and educational attainment. Occupational status reflects the educational attainment required to obtain the job and income levels that vary with different jobs and within ranks of occupations.
Following the above discussion, we can conclude that families with low socio-economic status often lack the financial, social, and educational supports that characterize families with high socio-economic status. The effect this has on academic performance of secondary students is what we have to find out in this work.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Shittu, (2004) observed that where a child suffers parental and material deprivation and care due to divorce or death, or absconding of one of the parents, the child's schooling may be affected, for the remaining parent may not be financially buoyant to pay school fee, purchase books, uniforms etc, thus the child’s performances in school may be adversely affected. Similarly, good parenting supported by strong economic home background could enhance strong academic performance of the child. This further predicts academic performance of the child.
Poverty and low socio-economic status coupled with high rate of paternal and maternal deprivations, which was necessitated by poor socio- economic situation, has thrown many farmers and old rural dwellers into untold financial problems such as poverty, lack of money to purchase necessary textbooks and working materials for their children. Many rural and suburban dwellers can no longer pay the school fees of their wards. These ugly situations have necessitated young school students to dropout of school to engage in subsistence farming and become housemaids or engage in other menial jobs to support their academic pursuit. Hence, many students have since taken schooling as a secondary assignment and school attendance on rotational basis. The resultant problem posed by this, is poor academic performance in school examination like National Examination Council (NECO) and West African Examination Council (WAEC). This trend is posing huge problems to parents, stakeholders in education, governments and the nation at large. This work thus examines the effect of socio- economic status in the poor academic performance of secondary school students in Idemili-South Local government Area of Anambra State.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Answer to the following research question will be provided by the study:
i.    Will there be any significant difference between males and females on academic performance?
ii.    Will there be any significant difference between students of high, middle and low socio-economic status on academic performance?
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The following is the objective of the research:
i.    To determine the effect of gender on academic performance.
ii.    To find out the effect of socio-economic status on the academic performance of students.