INFLUENCE OF HOME ENVIRONMENT ON PUPILS' ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN FUNTUA LOCAL EDUCATION AREA, KATSINA STATE

1 Background of the Study It is hypothesized by scholars that the home environment and family background are very important for the cognitive abilities and academic performance of pupils in primary education (Abdullahi, 2021). There is much evidence supporting the hypothesis that the quality of a child's early learning in home environment relates positively to the development of intelligent and reading skills. Home factors such as parent's responsiveness, discipline style, and involvement with the child, organization of the environment, availability of appropriate learning materials and opportunities for daily stimulation have been known to be important in pupil's academic performance. Parents are one of the most significant factors in the development of the children. This is due to the authority and skill they have to shape and develop their children into motivated, inspired and lenient people with their explicit involvement in the process of learning activities. Contrarily, parents without involvement in their children’s education process are merely considered to demotivate and demoralize their children through negligence. This, in turn, has a negative effect on their achievements (Bakker, 2007). According to (Abdul-Adil, 2006), parental involvement comprises parental attitudes, actions, style, and events that happen inside or outside the school environment to support children’s academic or behavioral success in their presently enrolled school Parents’ active involvement in their children’s education has a positive and noteworthy impact on children’s lives, including their development, behavior, motivation and academic performance. Kohl, Lengua, & McMahon, (2000), Farooq, Chaudhry, Shafiq, & Berhanu, (2011) observe that, children of parents who are involved in their academic work are regularly attend school, act better, do better academically from kindergarten through high school, go further in school and do better in school. Parent involvement send clear messages to their children; demonstrating their interest in their activities and strengthening the idea that school is important. Parent who provides a warm, responsive and supportive home environment, encourage exploration, stimulate curiosity and provide level grounds accelerate their children's intellectual development (Dopamu, 2006). It has been said humans generally are creatures of 'habit' no wonder, a state of a person's home environment has been known to have physiological and psychological influence on their behaviors, emotion's and the overall mental capacity of an individual. (Curott, 2008). Hence educationist have made it an area of prime importance not only for government or voluntary agencies but also for individuals and families to create conducive home environment for children. Government and individuals are committing a lot of resources in order to achieve success in the educational enterprise (Abdullahi, 2021). (Enemuо, 1999). Put it that the government believes that the greatest investment of a nation should be in her people. The greatness of any country/nation depends on genuine, qualities, attitudes and aspirations of her people and it cannot expect to be ignorant and frees at the same. Therefore, many factors and reasons have been given as being responsible for the continuous falling in the academic standard of our present educational system. These includes: attitudes of teachers to work, lack of seriousness on the part of students / pupils, effect of the dwindled economy, and influence of home environment and family background among other factors. Education is vital part of any individuals development and its attainment could be attributed to a number of reasons such as the natural inherent ability of the particularly the home environment in which the child come from (Curott, 2008). (International Crisis Group , 2020) Pointed out that, it is the common knowledge that individual is a product of both biological and environmental factors which consisted of both social cultural background. The physical environment of a child is very important in the environmental and physical make-up which is a function of the child's background: variably depends on the status of parents in society. It is factual that human beings all born alike, but difference occurs as soon as they come in contact with the varying conditions and experience in their social setting, which plays an important role in the personality development of the individual child. It is said that when certain factors are eminent in the child's home environment, it is then clear that the child will be motivated and driven towards high academic performance. Jaafar, 2018 as in (Olayinka, 2003) advised that incestuous recommendation, favorable climate condition, and other forms of home environment condition should be employed as motivational factors to stimulate pupils to higher achievement. It is likely that the home/much a pupil achieves during his school days are largely dependent on the kind of influence the home environment has on such pupil, For instance, a child whose parent take a great deal of interest in what he or she does at school and get his or her necessary support by providing all the required books and financial need has a great advantage over a child whose parent do not give him or her encouragement. Furthermore, a pupil from cities or urban centers is more likely to perform better than rural /village. At this juncture, the nation seem to have been experiencing a downward trend in educational development couple with a steady fall in standard of education, more so, resulting in an increased number of poor performance in primary school. Children can positively be influenced by brothers, sister, relation and most especially their parent in their home. Home or parental influence can take the form of paying school fees promptly, providing adequate feeding, clothing, providing school learning materials supervising their work from school among others. All the above listed points and many other affect the child’s morals for positive academic performance in school (Dopamu, 2006).