The Effect of National Poverty on Academic Performance of Junior Secondary School Students: A Case Study of the Western Rural District of Freetown in Sierra Leone

Poverty and education are inseparably connected. The present literature covers a variety of topics such as the effect of poverty on students’ literacy, numeracy skills, etc. But how poverty affects secondary students’ academic performance comprehensively is yet to be researched, especially in the countries which are the poorest in the world. This study focused on the Western Rural District of Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone which is one of the ten poorest countries in the world, as a case to investigate the effect of its poverty on the secondary students’ academic performance. The study focused specifically on students in Junior Secondary School from three aspects: Home, School, and Society. The population for this study comprised of students of junior secondary schools, parents and guardians, Integrated Science teachers of Freetown in the western district area during the 2018/2019 academic year. Data was collected from 375 sample respondents in 15 schools; 30 teachers (two teachers from each school), 300 students (20 in each school), 45 parents or guardians (3 from each school), using a questionnaire, interviews, and Focus Group Discussion. Based on the findings of this study, it was concluded that the prevalence of poverty in schools, homes and then the environment has greatly hindered the academic performance of school-going children. Firstly, schools’ poor facilities hinder teachers’ effective teaching and students’ learning. The school administrations cannot provide enough school materials due to a lack of funds to buy the necessary item for effective availability and accessibility. Teachers are poorly paid and not motivated for the work and their salaries and sources of income do not meet their daily needs. Many schools cannot afford to buy textbooks for the use of teachers and students in their schools, therefore some teachers stills depend on old notes that are outdated in teaching kids. Researches showed that the availability of school facilities such as school material, science laboratories, good toilets, good ventilation, spacious class, adequate teaching and learning materials, good infrastructure, the motivation of teachers, libraries, textbooks, etc., promote the academic performance of students in schools. But when such school facilities lack in the schools, teachers will experience constraints, students will lack education, and it will result in poor performance of students. Secondly, poor families prevent students’ studying well both at home and at school. The majority of the parents cannot provide the required needs of the students such as daily meals, good home, and daily lunch for school, transport fare to and from school. The students find it too difficult to study because of hunger in the houses, hunger in school (small money for lunch or without). This affects student concentration and limits the rate of understanding the lesson the teacher teaches in class. At home also, it prevents students from concentrating on their studies. The majority of the parents are dropouts from school by have stopped at primary or secondary education. Other parents never went to school. The limited knowledge in education made some parents lack the aspirations and support in investing in education. Parents give too much housework to their children at home than assisting them to study. They expose their children to too much idling for a long time in watching films/movies and football leagues, which to some extent limits the students’ concentration in academic work at home. Most of them do not have a home on their own and living in rented rooms with others, so the children are found with a lot of influences beyond the control of the parent. They cannot pay their children’s school fees on time due to the poor state of their conditions. In most cases, their children are asked out of class when their other classmates are being taught. By the time they could settle for class, they have lost the last lesson taught, so it leads them to failure. Thirdly, due to the poor condition of the school and social environment, there was no attraction to motivate the teacher’s teaching and the students learning. Too many ghettoes, clubs within the environment is a sign of poverty within that locality as they are centers for frustrated, dropouts, and idling persons. Students may pay homage to such places whereby their education is affected, and their academic performance hindered. Of course, we believe that students, especially secondary students, have the agency to some degree, and can reduce themselves the influence of poverty on their academic performance. In other words, poverty is not the sole factor to affect students’ academic performance. Therefore, the study finally proposed some recommendations to lessen the influence of poverty on secondary students.