PERCEPTION OF UNDERGRADUATES ON UNWANTED PREGNANCY AND ITS EFFECT ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF TERTIARY INSTITUTION STUDENTS IN LAGOS STATE

Many tertiary institution students usually fail in their studies due to issues of unwanted pregnancy. This failure rate could be better addressed if they understand the influence of unwanted pregnancy on their studies. Therefore, the study investigated the perception of undergraduates on unwanted pregnancy and its effect on academic performance of tertiary institution students in Lagos state. Four research questions were raised and four research hypotheses formulated. The study adopted descriptive design research of the survey type. The population of this study comprised of all tertiary institution students in Lagos State. A sample of two hundred (200) tertiary institution students were randomly selected for the study from three tertiary institutions in Lagos State. Structured questionnaire duly validated were used for data collection. The reliability of the instrument was 0.578 using test re-test method. The research instruments were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. The findings revealed that the extent to which unwanted pregnancy influence student’s performance is high(x̄=2.73), challenges and barriers faced by institution students with unwanted pregnancy is high (x̄ =2.96) and lastly, the implication of unwanted pregnancies to the institution students is also high (x̄ 2.85). It was recommended that sex education should be implemented in tertiary institutions which will serve as benefit to both students and institutions in terms of upright, skilled, focus and intelligent student. Tertiary institution should ensure that sex education should align with the curriculum and provides interactive, realistic simulations, encouraging students to know the consequences and how unwanted pregnancy could affect their academic performance.