CHAPTER ONE
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The need to make all children have access to quality education has made the Federal Government to re-introduce the universal basic education which provides free and compulsory education for all children to Nigeria from basis one to basic mine. This need has made the various tiers of governments to come out with series of incentives, which would encourage children enrolment in schools (Fagbemi, 2006). The effort of the Federal Government has not yielded any positive results, owing to the fact that the standard of education in Nigeria has been falling rapidly over the years in terms of achievement in writing and oral examinations.
The Nigerian students perform poorly in public examinations such as National Examination Council(NECO), West Africa Examination Council (WAEC,)Joint Admission And Matriculation Board(JAMB) and National Business and Technical Council (NABTEC), and the rate of participation of students in examination malpractices has reached an alarming rate. The scenario that has been painted is that Nigerian students are having interest in malpractices than being studious. This development in the educational system has become an issue in which the stakeholders are searching for what might have been responsible for this. The parents have been seen as one of the main reasons for the lost of virtue in the Nigerian educational system.
The high cost of living has led many women to leave their traditional duties of child upbringing to seek for paid employment. In the traditional African settings, women stay at home and nurture the children (Parker, 2010). Through them, the children learn at first contract the norms and obligations of the society. At this period, the children grow up to be morally competent and hardworking. Today, the need to provide for the well-being of the family as well as for their children has thrown many women into the labour market. Equal access to education has made women to reach highs level in educational and career pursuit. Women are lawyers, accountants, engineers, architects, medical doctors, pilots and so on.