ABSTRACT

The study examined the influence of parental occupation and education on the academic achievement of students of Senior Secondary Two (SS2) in English language and Mathematics in Ogidi and Otuocha education zones of Anambra State, Nigeria. The population of the study consisted of 16,886 students in public secondary schools in Anambra State. Ten (10) out of 51 senior secondary schools in the two zones were randomly selected. Eight hundred SS2 students of senior secondary schools were selected by simple random sampling technique from the ten (10) public senior secondary schools in the two education zones in the state. Three research questions and three null hypotheses guided the study. Ex Post facto design was adopted for the study. Data were collected using document analysis (school records) for SS2 third term results in English language and Mathematics. Parental occupation and educational level were collected from students’ records. Means and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions and t-test was used for hypotheses 1 and 2 while Two-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to analyse hypotheses 3. The result revealed that parental occupation and education influenced academic achievement of SS2 students in English language and mathematics. This is in line with the findings of many researchers. The following recommendations were made; Employers of labour should pay their workers (parents) on time as well as giving them promote on as at when due. Parents can engage themselves on more than one sources of income. Government and non-government organisations should improve on giving people loan with little or no interest to help them become self-employed. Parents should be encouraged by their employers to attend workshops seminars and part time courses or in service training to improve themselves on their occupation and education.