THE EFFECT OF HAWKING ON STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN SELECTED JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS

CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.0 INTRODUCTION

Our focus in this chapter is to critically examine relevant literature that would assist in explaining the research problem and furthermore recognize the efforts of scholars who had previously contributed immensely to similar research. The chapter intends to deepen the understanding of the study and close the perceived gaps.

2.1 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Concept of Education

According to National Policy on Education(1979), Education is the process of acquiring knowledge. It is a tool for person’s development, the single most powerful weapon against poverty, and a fundamental human right to which we all are entitled. It gives people the opportunity to improve on their health, raise productivity and help foster participation in civil society. Education is a process of keeping the world and our society intact and in fostering the development and growth upon which human survival and progress depends. It the development of process of equipping individuals with knowledge and skills to enable them solve the complex problems of living usefully for themselves, their families and make worthwhile contribution to the overall progress and development of the overall progress and development of the society. “Thus the educational process has been described as the intentional transmission of something worthwhile or desirable in a morally acceptable manner. It is the all-round development of a person physically, intellectually, morally, and spiritually. This implies that education encourages a wholesome development of the individual through participation in the activities of the social group, and that there must be a guide who can direct such education in a way that can result in all round development of a person. Education is a tool for national development, the single most powerful weapon against poverty, and a fundamental human right to which we all are entitled. It gives people the opportunity to improve health, raise productivity and help foster participation in civil society. Education is a process of keeping the world and our society intact and in fostering the development and growth upon which human survival and progress depends.

Okeke D. (2009) further asserts that Education is the process of providing information to an inexperienced person to help him/her develop physically, mentally, socially, emotionally, spiritually, politically and economically. That is why at graduation ceremonies one hears the Vice-Chancellors pronounce these words while awarding degrees to their institutions’ graduates, “you have been found worthy in character and learning…” In education parlance, it means that the individual has acquired adequate and appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes and values, known as cognitive, psychomotor and affective behaviours to be able to function optimally as a citizen. These behaviors are the focus of training individuals in institutions of learning .

The planned and systematic training given in an institution of learning is formal education. The programme or is organized, planned and systematically implemented. In an informal education, there is no plan and the training is haphazard and incidental. Education is the process through which individuals are made functional members of their society (Ocho, J. 2005). It is a process through which the young acquires knowledge and realizes her potentialities and uses them for self-actualization, to be useful to herself and others. It is a means of preserving, transmitting and improving the culture of the society. In every society education connotes acquisition of something good, something worthwhile. Education is one of the fundamental rights of individuals. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December, 1949 stipulated that:

• Everyone has the right to education.
• This shall be free at least in the elementary and primary stages.
• Elementary education shall be compulsory while technical and professional
• Education shall be made generally available.
• Higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

According to Nwangwu, (1976) cited in Etim, M.(2013) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. Why should everyone have the right to education? The answers to this question are given thus:

1. The child is born helpless and has to rely entirely on parents and other older members of the society to survive and satisfy her growth needs in all their ramifications

2. The degree and quality of participation in the life of the society depends to a large extent on the degree and quality of her education. This will enable her perform her political and other citizenship duties and exercise the rights pertaining thereto effectively.

Kingley,A. (2015) further explained that every citizen benefits from the result of the education of her fellow citizen and since every generation receives its education from an older generation, every generation has a duty to reciprocate by educating the generation that comes after it.. There is an adage that says “educate a man, you educate an individual, but educate a woman, you educate a nation” The above summarizes the essence of education to the girl-child and indeed, to every educable human being, and so calls for special attention to be focused on education of the girl-child. No nation can afford to toy with the education of her citizens, especially, the child, who will be the father or mother of tomorrow, because education is the bedrock of all facets of development. Children are future leaders of tomorrow and mothers are guardians of the future, and the first aim of every family and society should be to raise healthy and productive individuals who are physically, psychologically, socially, and mentally well developed. These can be achieved through the education of the girl-child who is the mother of tomorrow.

Concept of Academic Performance

The world is becoming more and more competitive. Quality of performance has become the key factor for personal progress. In fact, it appears as if the whole system of education revolves round the academic performance of students, though various other outcomes are also expected from the system. Thus a lot of time and effort of the schools are used for helping students to achieve better in their scholastic endeavours. The importance of scholastic and academic performance has raised important questions for educational researchers (Larry, Y. 2010). However, the complexity of the academic achievement starts from its conceptualization.

Sometimes it is known as school readiness, academic achievement and school performance, but generally the difference in concepts are only explained by semantics as they are used as synonyms. Conventionally, it has been agreed that academic performance should be used in university populations and school performance in regular and alternative basic education populations. We will point out just a few because there is a diversity of definitions. Several authors agree that academic performance is the result of learning, prompted by the teaching activity by the teacher and produced by the student. From a humanistic approach, Martinez (2007) states that academic performance is “the product given by the students and it is usually expressed through school grades”. Pizarro in 1985 referred to academic performance as a measure of the indicative and responsive abilities that express, in an estimated way, what a person has learned as a result of a process of education or training. For Caballero et al. (2007), academic performance involves meeting goals, achievements and objectives set in the program or course that a student attends. These are expressed through grades which are the result of an assessment that involves passing or not certain tests, subjects or courses. On their part, Torres and Rodríguez (2006 quoted by Willcox, 2011) define academic performance as the level of knowledge shown in an area or subject compared to the norm, and it is generally measured using the grade point average.

Academic performance is the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has attained their short or long-term educational goals. Completion of educational benchmarks such as secondary school diplomas and bachelor's degrees represent academic achievement(Wikipedia.org). Academic performance means the knowledge and skills that students have mastered in a subject or a course. It’s basically a measure of how well students have performed in the various assessment items set for them based on some educational criteria determined by professional educators. Academic performance is arrived through students' performance in the assessment items such as essays, tests, and examinations, students’ performance are determined in ranking as to the educational standards that they have reached pass, credit, distinction, high distinction and so on (Quora. 2016).

Academic performance is a tool for identifying strength and weakness in education and is an outcome of an educational assessment. The practice of educational assessment seeks to determine how well the learners are learning and provides feedback to learners and other stakeholders on the effectiveness of education services (National Resource Council 2004) the education system uses academic performance to design and implement programs and services that may improve the academic performance of learners with hearing impairment. The Ministry of Education and parents have a greater desire to see the children’s upbringing and educations improve in order to increase demands made by the work place on young people’s basic skills (Abdu-Raheem, B.2015). Over the years research has shown that learners with hearing impairment in Kenya have consistently trailed behind their hearing counterparts in academic performance.

Hence, academic performance occupies a very important place in education as well as in the learning process. Academic performance has become an index of individual’s future in this highly competitive world. Academic performance has been one of the most important goals of the educational process. It is also a major goal, which every individual is expected to perform in all cultures, Academic performance is a key mechanism through which adolescents learn about their talents, abilities and competencies which are an important part of developing career aspirations, academic performance and career aspirations in adolescent are often correlated (Abu-Hilal ). Immediate performance of a learner can be seen by the instructor or learner after natural and smooth completion of a sequence of learning process. Mashile E. O. in 2011 further confirmed that Grades obtained in examination indicate candidate’s ability, mastery of content and skills in applying knowledge to particular situation (Bourne, 2007).

According to Micheal, K. M. (2014) he espoused that academic performance is a key measure of school success, because high performance in school open doors to further education and to well-paying jobs. The author further stressed that for females to have the same opportunities as males in education and labour market, it is important for them to be equally well prepared academically. Authentic academic performance covers individuals’ academic abilities and skills in applying practical abilities. Academic performance refers to indicators or the interpretation of the test result which imply a comparison of sample behaviour. The comparison can be one sample behaviour with another taken at different point in time or withy that taken from another students or group of students.

On the concept of academic performance, Ebel (1979) cited in layanju, O.(2014),defines academic `performance as assessment out-come of a formal instruction in cognitive domain within a defined subject matter and is clearly taught in within an expected learning outcome. Iayanjufurther asserts that academic performance as work or function which an individual indicates as his or her abilities, motives, interest and personality traits. Thus, it predicts what an individual will archive in future. The researcher further stress that better academic performance at early stage of the school career predicts accomplishments in later stages of career as well as after leaving schools.

Failure and success are market concepts which have never been considered in the educational world and we have to avoid the strong negative component they both imply. We observed a positivist bias that Hochschild, J. (2013) describes with these words: “It is studied what fits best in the method, which is best measured, while what it is not so easily quantifiable is invisible.” In this case, PISA has the positive aspect of explicitly stating its approach, and thus it doesn’t intend to evaluate education as a whole, it doesn’t even intend to make of it assessment the most important fact in education. What is really important and useful is to define the educational goals we want to achieve, to analyze the contexts and difficulties we encounter, and to create proposals and mechanisms of action that will allow us to achieve these goals. It is known that during adolescence remarkable physical and psychological transformations occur, especially in personality. These transformations could affect school performance; therefore, teachers must be prepared to positively channel these changes; otherwise, they might take an adverse course. Similarly, we should go for flexible teaching interactions and methods, capable of adapting to students with very different personalities. We should also consider that if impulsivity affects the ability to learn, it may only affect the individual’s crystallized intelligence, not his/her fluid intelligence. This is because first one depends more on teaching-learning processes, while the fluid intelligence refers to the ability to establish relationships regardless of prior knowledge acquired.

In this regard Llorente states that improving the educational situation implies to implement, strengthen and apply in all the educational centers, all the various measures that have been proven useful when dealing with diversity: such as splitting, individualized tutoring, the Initial Professional Qualification Program (IPQP), school activities programs, interdisciplinary and/or globalizing methodological proposals such as working in areas or projects, intervention of two teachers in a classroom at the same time, classroom organization in cooperative groups, mediation, negotiation and commitments, coordinating support teams, banks of resources and material, the lack of concentration of disadvantaged students in the same classroom or educational center.Also, a good educational monitoring system should promote a change in attitudes in teachers from certain sectors, beginning with awareness and conviction, rather than imposition. These are attitudes aimed at improving educational practices in the classroom or verification of the curriculum compliance.

Notably, there are factors that could determine determine the level of performance a student attain at the end of an academic year. Factors such as parent support, teachers qualification, pedagogical methods, learning environment and home factors. Specifically the study is directed towards home environment with reference to parents social economic status. Therefore it is not out of place to imagine that if a child who is meant to go to school is sent out on the street by the parent or guardian to hawk during school hours or after school hour, such child may not perform well in school.

CONCEPT OF STREET HAWKING

Street hawking is defined by Umar (2009) in its simplest form is the selling of thingsalong the roads and from one place to the other. Aiyeluro (1979) defines street hawking asthe process whereby the hawker hawks his goods by carrying the goods on his or her head by means of a tray, or minor forms of transportation like wheel barrows, bicycles, trolleys etc. in search of customers in the process of which he could employ the use of bells or shout the name of the item he or she is hawking in order to attract the attention of any interested customer.

Anyanwu (1992) sees street hawking as a trading activity that involves movement across house or street with certain articles usually food or household commodity advertised by the seller through shouting the name of the item, ringing of bell or the like. Street hawking is considered as the act of canvassing for sale, items carried by the hawker along the street, from house to house or in the public places in town (Ikechebelu 2008).Therefore, street hawking is a system of trade that involves the movement of thetrader from place to another in search of customers to purchase his or her wares, which could be household or perishable commodity, through the means of shouting or using a bell.

Vinolia and Fubara (1988) described street hawking as an aspect of child abuse and neglect. They argued that certain economic and socio-psychological factors induce street hawking which they added have damaging effects on the developmental processes of children.The culture of hawking did not come from the blues; it has a historical offshoot.

TRENDS OF STREET HAWKING IN NIGERIA

In seeking to situate the development of street hawking in Nigeria, a historical review of how street hawking came to stay in Nigeria becomes imperative. As it concerns the emergence of child hawking in Nigeria, Olori (2009) is of the opinion that street trading, especially by children, appears to have started with the introduction of an International Monetary Fund tructural Adjustment Plan (IMFSA) in the late 1980s, which led to the devaluation of the currency, a withdrawal of subsidies on items such as fuel, water, and electricity, and job cuts. Resulting from the above, parents who could no longer afford fees for their children or wards withdraw them from school. In an effort to help families make ends meet, some of these children were engaged as domestic servants to wealthy households, as car washers and watchers, bus conductors, and street hawkers. At this point, it is very clear that the issue of child hawking is not as old as man, rather it started at a point in the history of human existence. Therefore, it is still believed that the principles of anything that has a beginning must have an end will one day be fulfilled in the issue of child hawking in Nigeria, if the right policy steps are taken (Olori, 2009).

Street hawking among the primary school age children are fast becoming the culture in our society. When children are kept busy on the street and they come in contact with different corrupt behaviors during hawking, it becomes worrisome what the outcome will be on their academic, behavioral and socio-emotional development. This if not properly addressed will seriously affect the general standard of morality and social norms that has formed the acceptable pattern of behavior among the youths

Involving children in hawking goods in the street is an emerging trend in Nigeria and an issue of concern. This trend is refer to as; child street trading (Ashimolowo, Aromolaran & Inegbedion, 2010), child street hawking (Mathias & Dada, 2013), juvenile street hawking (Udoh & Joseph, 2012) and child street vendor (Ugochukwu, Okeke, Onubogu &Edokwe, 2012). Children are preferred to adult in hawking goods because; they are less criminal and a cheap labour to the employer (Arhedo, Aluede &Arhedo, 2011; Anumaka, 2012).This led to increase in the number of children who roam the street daily hawking goods while those of their age are in school. Studies identified the age bracket of these children to fall between 10 and 19 years. (Ashimolowo, et al 2010; Ndem, Michiel, & Awa, 2012; Ugochukwu, et al 2012).

Most of this children hawk before going to school in morning and continue after until late night. Street hawking has left many children out of school as they drop out, withdrawn by their parent or not enroll. School age children estimated to be 10.5 million are out of school in Nigeria (The Guardian, 2013). Though, this is not surprising, giving that majority of the population are living below the poverty line couple with the fact that, these children are being engaged in income generating activities to contribute to the sustenance of the family, however, it is embarrassing to a country with abundant natural resources like Nigeria. Until this is addressed, achieving education millennium development goal remains an illusion.

Causes of Street Hawking

A number of factors have propelled children into hawking in various streets. It is not as if the children are not happy to join their mates in schools to enjoy the breeze of good Western Education but something caused such condition to take place, amongst them are:

Poverty: According to Hornby Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (2000), poverty is the state of being poor. Poverty is a condition where people's basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter are not being met. Studies indicate that most children who hawk are motivated by poverty. The search for money to make ends meet in a depressed economy is obviously one of the major reasons for parent and guardians sending their children or wards to hawk. Either that the parents do not earn enough money or that they have a lot of children to take care of, which results in leading them to the street to supplement family income.

Poor familyplanning: Some families do not adopt and practice family planning; they give birth to more than the number they can cater for because they see children as a free gift of God; therefore, children brought into the world by these parents face difficulties as a result of this. It is not only the children that face hardship but also the parents that gave birth to them. The parents begin to think on how to get support to train the children and end up sending the children to the streets to make money through hawking of goods on the streets.

Child trafficking: Child trafficking is one of the principal causes of child hawking. Trafficking is defined as the recruitment, transfer, harboring, or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation. This is in line with the definition of street hawking by The UN convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (2000);

“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, of abuse of power, giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation” “exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs”

In some countries, women in the cities visit rural areas and meet mothers who they think can easily agree for them to take their daughters or sons to the city where they stay. The poor parents usually think that the persons they handed over their children will take care of them properly without knowing that they have subjected their children to the modern day slavery known as child trafficking. When the children get to the cities, they would be surprised to see that they were trafficked and hence do not know how to make their ways back to their locations (their parents homes). The “business women” usually hand these children to other people who subject them to hawking on the streets of the cities. Some of these children were usually raped and exploited while hawking on the streets.

War/Death of Parent: When war occurs, children usually go fatherless and motherless; as the breeze of wars come with many killings and bloodshed. When these children lose their parent that cares for them, either through sickness, sudden death or as a result of war, persons who takes care of them may not be diligent as they see these children as not their own. They are most times subjected to street hawking as their parents are no longer alive to love, educate, house and cloth them properly.

Illiteracy: Illiteracy in some part of Nigeria, has contributed to high level of street hawking by children in the Nation. In some part of Nigeria, especially in the North, there are parents with high illiteracy level. These kinds of parents are bankrupt on the importance of education to nations, because of this, they prefer to send their children to the streets where they will make money for them. The illiteracy the parents of the children suffered from will be transferred to the children because the children do not attend schools when their mates were learning in their various classrooms.

THE EFFECT OF HAWKING ON STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Street hawking has a negative effect on the level of education attained, school attendance, school grades, literacy, and overall human capital formation (Murphy, Jellinek, Quinn, Smith, Poitrast, & Goshko, 1991). In Africa, and particularly in rural Nigeria, it has been observed that child laborers generally have lower school attendance (Robson, 2004). Most of the hawkers are either in primary/ secondary school for the purpose of hawking and at each day sales the children become weak and tired that they are unable to concentrate, contribute to discussion or study on their own. When will the children have time to go school when they are busy making money for their parents or guardian who sent them out to the street? During school hours, they sleep in the classroom due to exhaustion and after school hours, they take to the street to engage in their trade. This results in poor grades and lack of interest in furthering their education.

It has been heard that some parents in towns and cities withdrawn their children from school in order to send them hawking so as to make more money for the family up keep. In some cases, some children are always dropped out from school for a term or even a whole year and when they get back to school (that is if they go back to it all) they become too big for their cohort and they fall victims of name calling by younger classmates

Effect of Street Hawking on the Behavioral Development of the Child

Early deprivation of children’s right to normal life could lead to behavioral problems. Thus, the behavioral manifestations of problems associated with street hawking include problems of social maladjustment, moral defect, emotional reaction and insecurity. The children tend to keep bad company and are negatively pressured by peer to engage in delinquent behavior (Hughes,2009).

Teenagers especially the female folks are exposed through hawking to be sexually aware too early in life. In the attempt to sell their wares, teenagers mingle with the touts in the motor packs and in the streets. Some of the female teenage hawkers are lured into sexual relationship that may result into pre-mature pregnancy, some may become promiscuous following exposure through hawking. As a result of this, females may drop hawking and resort to prostitution. Prostitution occasionally results ·to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and subsequent criminal abortion and illegitimate children (lgwe, 1996). Male teenage hawkers learn the act of smoking cigarette and even hard drugs because of the interaction with people of questionable characters while some are exposed to armed robbery business.

Effect of Street Hawking on the Socio-emotional development of the Child.

Baland and Robinson (2000) found out that these children suffer verbal abuse, low self-esteem and a loss of imagination. Anagbogu (2000) found feelings of inferiority, exhaustion, emotional distress, unhappiness and personality disorder to be associated with street hawking. In the late childhood stage (6- 10 years) the age of primary school, children learn at this period by observation (Banda, 2003). It is characterized by the period at which children always play as a natural activity which contributes to their development which give them satisfaction and enjoyment (Ibiam, 2006). It is the time children socialize with each other in the school and in the environment in which they find themselves, they interact with one another and make friends with their mates.

However, some children are denied the opportunity due to the exposure to street hawking. The child street hawker faces a lot of emotional trauma and abuse. He is denied of the family atmosphere as he spends his life on the street hawking. It may make him/her feel frustrated, dejected, dominated or humiliated especially in the school

2.3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

A theoretical framework includes concepts and, accompanied by their definitions and reference to pertinent scholarly literature, existing theories used for a particular study. This demonstrates an understanding of theories and concepts that are relevant to the topic of a research paper and that relate to the broader areas of knowledge being considered (Labaree, 2009). The theoretical underpinning of the study is anchored on social support theory.

Social Support Theory by Cohen and Syme (1988)

Social support theory was propounded by Cohen and Syme (1988). According to this theory, social isolation is a significant risk factor, whether it is within the community, extended family, or immediate family. A helpful social support network is a fundamental resource for family members – both for parents dealing with many

stressors as well as for the children in the stressful and abuse environment. Without intervention and treatment, children from low socio-economic background within the family system can likely develop some social and psychological risk factors of child abuse that carry on to adulthood which may likely affect their academic achievement (Crosson-Towner, 2005).

Social support theory is relevant to this study by revealing some reasons behind parent involvement with particular reference to family socio-economic background. The theory holds that, parenting challenges and a lack of support can compel parents to expose their children to hard labour in quest for provision of daily bread. This invariably affects the chances of children in such families going to school. When there no money to take care of family responsibilities, parents from low socio-economic background engaged their children in selling or hawking at early morning before going to schools which resulting to lateness, inability to comprehend lessons due to stresses undergone earlier before coming to school; all these, yielding academic backwardness for the child. Students with low socio-economic status often struggle with time-management issues due to balancing many different areas of life on their own. Parents are less involved with their children and therefore give less encouragement and have lower expectations of their children than students with high socio-economic status (Majoribanks 2016).

In support of social support theory, is the parental callousness theory which posits that parents do not care about the welfare of their children and will always seize any earnings opportunities open to children by sending them out to hawk in the street. However, this study finds child labour supply to be very responsive to variation in household attributes, especially household living standards.

2.3 REVIEW OF EMPIRICAL STUDIES

Ekaette& Wushishi (2019) conducted a study on impacts of street hawking on biology achievements of teenage girls in Senior Secondary Schools in Minna Metropolis of Niger State. The population of the study consisted of all senior secondary one , two and three (SSS1,2 and3) female biology Students in five secondary Schools in Minna Metropolis Area of Niger State. Two hundred and fifty students (250) were randomly selected through simple random sampling technique. The instruments used for data collection was constructed by the researcher and validated by experts in the field of sociology of education. The second instrument used was third term biology examination results of the sampled students. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The entire three hypotheses were rejected. The findings of the study revealed that street hawking has adverse effects on the student’s academic achievements in biology at all levels of the Senior Secondary Schools. Students should be discouraged from all forms of juvenile trading and the welfare of students should be catered by their parents, guidance, society and governments and this will improve the educational achievements achievement.

Ubah and Bulus (2014) conducted a study on the effect of street hawking on academic performance of students of social studies in Nasarawa state. The sample comprises of 100 JSS III students, 50 females and 50 males. Quasi-experimental post-test design was employed. Test item; Social studies performance test (SSPT) instrument was use. Using t-test statistics the result shows that: the experimental group exposed to hawking performed significantly lower than the control group who are not exposed. The performances mean score of the experimental group is 10.50 while the control group is 15.60. The study found that street hawking has negative effect on students’ academic performance in social studies. It recommends that government should create more job opportunities so that children would not have to contribute to family income.

Okorudu (2016) conducted a study on causes and effect of street hawking on the academic, behavioural and socio-emotional development of children in ugHelli North Local Government area of Delta State. The study was guided by eighteen (18) research questions. The sampled population consists of 200 respondents of both parents and students in Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State. The data used for the study was gotten from the questionnaire composed by the researchers and the data were analyzed using simple percentage. The major findings of this study shows that poverty is the major cause of street hawking and that children hawking on the street develop maladjusted patterns of behavior, which in turn impair their academic, moral and social-emotional development thus affecting their future negatively. Based on these findings, it was recommended that government should provide free basic education, improve worker’s remuneration, provide academic grants and aids to economically disadvantaged parents, and create jobs for unemployed parents, in order to keep children from hawking under the guise of subsisting family income at the expense of their total development.