Change Of Course And Academic Performance Of Students In Nigeria: A Study Of University Of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria

Admission into higher institutions (especially universities) in Nigeria has become an issue of competition of a sort. This is as a result of the high number of admission seekers compared to the admission capacity of universities. Over the years, the scramble for 'bigname' courses and low interest in other courses has led the universities to offer admission to candidates in courses different from their choices of application. As a result of this, admission seekers are usually in some cases willing to part with their selected course just to get to the 'promised land'. They are usually so gripped with unbridled joy that they have been provisionally admitted such that they hardly think of the consequences of settling for a career that is not of their choice. Not only can the student find out later that he/she cannot cope with the course academic-wise, there is also the danger of disillusionment in which the student derives no satisfaction from the career choice. If the student ends up working for an organization, not only is this preventive to the achievement of self-actualization, but also hazardous to the realization of the organizational goals. It is in line with this that this research was conducted in the University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria to find out if the change of course of students has in anyway contributed to poor performance in their studies. The rational choice theory was used to explain this phenomenon. The purposive sampling technique was employed in the selection of 235 respondents. The study revealed that a significant relationship exists between the change of course of students and academic failure. Based on this, the study recommends that universities should organized orientation programmes for students whose given courses were different from their choices of application.