FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN SECOND CYCLE SCHOOLS IN AFIGYA SEKYERE SOUTH DISTRICT OF GHANA

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find the factors affecting student’s performance among second cycle schools in Afigya Sekyere South district. The study adopted a case study research design. The target population comprises all Senior high school students in Afigya Sekyere South district. The accessible population comprise of students in the three selected schools in Afigya Sekyere South (Adu Gyamfi Senior high School, Agona Secondary Technical and Agona S.D.A). Purposive sampling was used to determine the sample size which constitutes 380 respondents; 300 students, 45 teachers and 35 parents. According to the study the factors that contributed to low academic performance of students include: Inadequate teaching and learning materials, class size, Lack of parents’ involvement in students work, occupation of parents, educational background of parents, Inability of teachers to complete their syllabus and not supervising exercises given to the students, Poor supervisory role of teachers were the factors that contributed students poor performance. It was recommended that; School authorities should do well to build new classroom blocks to reduce the class population and provide teaching learning materials to facilitators, Parents should visit school of their children to find out the progress in their child’s education, Teachers should do well to complete their syllabus and make time to inspect the exercise given to the students to ensure correlation between class exercise and end of term exams, Students should pay attention in class and notify teachers if they don’t understand topic been taught before doing the class exercise to avoid copying.