A socio-cognitive impact of class-skipping syndrome on learners communicative and linguistic competence among private school students in Lagos state, Nigeria.

Abstract

A significant number of parents are always in a rush that their children or wards should finish secondary at an age that learners have not attained cognitive maturity. The negative impact of unhealthy curriculum and class skipping syndrome has enormous effect on the educational system, cognitive and linguistic competence and the social and academic wellbeing of learners. The study examined parental perception towards unhealthy curriculum and class skipping syndrome among private schools in Lagos State, Nigeria. Two research questions and two hypotheses were raised to guide the study. A Questionnaire on Perceptions towards Unhealthy Curriculum and Class Skipping Syndrome was used to collect the data. The instrument was validated through face and construct validity while the Test Re-test method was used to obtain a reliability correlation co-efficient of 0.72. The instrument was administered on 120 parents randomly selected from six private schools on the basis of rural and urban geographical locations. The results showed a significant relationship between class skipping syndrome and student’s social communicative and linguistic competence on academic wellbeing. Likewise, there is a significant relationship between unhealthy curriculum and student’s academic, communicative, linguistic and social wellbeing among private schools in Lagos State. So, it was concluded from this study that unhealthy curriculum and class skipping syndrome when excessively applied on students may negatively affect student’s wellbeing and there is a strong relationship between academic stress and reduced academic performance. It is recommended that parents, teachers, policy makers, educational administrators, career and counseling centers should put in place mechanisms that can lessen the negative impacts of unhealthy curriculum and class skipping syndrome on the students. Structures and infrastructures needed for proper implementation of Nigerian educational policy should be put in place.