Influence of Reading Habit on Student Academic Performance in a Senior Second School in Ibadan

Introduction

The Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Federal Ministry of Education (FME) (2004), in the National Policy on education highlighted the broad aims of secondary education as preparing students to play their role by contributing to the nations' economic, political and social development and sustainable goals, for useful living within the society and preparing them for higher education. Secondary school is generally considered the gateway for the development of other sectors of the educational system. It provides primary school leavers the opportunity for qualitative education and provides the platform from which higher institutions draw students for admission into their various programs. It also provides students who will not go for higher education in the colleges' and university's skills and knowledge for vocational work.

In Nigeria, public discussions frequently focus on educational standards. The public's unhappiness becomes more prominent in the reported cases of poor and continued decline in the academic performance in the Senior School Certificate Examination across Nigeria (Umameh, 2011; Alimi et al., 2012; Ajayi and Osalusi, 2013; Duruji et al., 2014) as student outcomes did not match the government and parental investments. In the view of Duruji et al. (2014), their study reported that student non-commitment and quality of teaching had been a limitation to excellent academic performance. With the reported incidence of examination malpractice (Adeniyi et al., 2010), the low level of commitment among students, as mentioned by Duruji et al. (2014), cannot be downplayed. All stakeholders are concerned about why the system is turning out students with poor results. Authors (Ogunsaju, 2004; Owoeye and Olatunde, 2011; Bertoni et al., 2017; Taylor et al., 2017; Ibrahim et al., 2017; Suleiman et al., 2019) states that the academic standard in all Nigerian educational institutions has fallen considerably below societal expectations. Blumende (2001) corroborated this view when he reported that the decline in the quality of education could not be ignored by anyone aware of the significant role of education as an instrument of societal transformation and development. Bertoni et al. (2017) traced the decline in education in Nigeria to the increasing incidence of communal conflicts, which has resulted in displacement and forced migration and relocation.

The poor state of Nigerian secondary schools calls for concern. Many educators (Usman, 2015; Kayode and Ayodele, 2015; Igboanusi and Peter, 2016) have observed in the recent past that secondary schools have derailed in the provision of qualitative education expected of them. Igboanusi and Peter (2016) reported the public mass knowledge of senior school students' failure. Many problems seem to bedevil the system, thereby affecting student academic performance. Student academic performance needs to be high in order to meet the country's goal for political, economic, and socially sustainable development. The extent to which the school system can accomplish its stated objectives of the national policy on education determines its level of effectiveness. It has, however, been observed that students are not doing well in the secondary education level, and this seem to make the society lose confidence in the educational system. For instance, student academic performance, which members of the society used mainly to measure the effectiveness of schools, has witnessed unprecedented setbacks. Studies (Ezenwafor and Amobi, 2016; Musah et al., 2017) have shown in their studies the extent of poor academic performance of students in external examination. Musah et al. (2017) mentioned that for science subjects such as Biology, there had been an increasing concern for the public. Ezenwafor and Amobi (2016) reported the same for business-oriented subjects. In their study, improved parental support and study habit were suggested.