Lateness to school remains a major that the school is facing. Lateness have devastating effect on teaching and learning process in the school which has great negative impact on school standard, students’ academic performance, absenteeism, distractions for other students, inhibition of goal achievement, irresponsibility and failure in life among other aftermaths.

LATENESS TO SCHOOL

Lateness to school is like a cancer that impedes the development and hinders the achievement of academic goals. It has been observed that students’ lateness is on the increase of indiscipline and this has eaten deep into the Nigerian society. Students no longer take punctuality in school as they should. The official arrival time for students at school in Nigeria is 7.30 a.m. unfortunately, many students can still be sighted walking around the streets by 9- 9.30; they walk around communities unconcerned.

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The school are doing all they could to curb this act but it seems the effort has no noticeable effect, thus, making lateness to school on the increase. This in turn culminates to increase in the turning out of half-baked graduates’ at all educational institutions in the society. The causes of lateness among students seem to be unclear with many submissions being made by stakeholders.

REASONS FOR PUPILS’ LATENESS TO SCHOOL

There are many factors that could make a student get late or develop the habit of getting late to school. This could range from sleeping late, poor preparation for school, school factor, illness, economic influence and family background among others, films at night; watching films at night, engagement in too many house chores, lack of motivation for school, lack of stringent rules in school against lateness etc. Social status of parents could influence students’ lateness to school. Similarly, school location, students’ attitude towards, poor parent-teacher supervision and poor teaching methods culminate into students arriving school late.

ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Academic performance is an issue that deeply concerns students, parents, teachers and authorities not only in our country, but also in many other Latin American countries and continents. The complexity of the academic performance starts from its conceptualization. Sometimes it is known as school readiness, academic achievement and school performance, but generally the difference in concepts is only explained by semantics as they are used as synonyms. Conventionally, it has been agreed that academic performance should be used in university populations and school performance in regular and alternative basic education populations. We will point out just a few because there is a diversity of definitions. Several authors agree that academic performance is the result of learning, prompted by the teaching activity by the teacher and produced by the student. Academic performance is “the product given by the students and it is usually expressed through school grades”. Academic performance as a measure of the indicative and responsive abilities that express, in an estimated way, what a person has learned as a result of a process of education or training. Academic performance involves meeting goals, achievements and objectives set in the program or course that a student attends. These are expressed through grades which are the result of an assessment that involves passing or not certain tests, subjects or courses. Academic performance also can be seen as the level of knowledge shown in an area or subject compared to the norm, and it is generally measured using the grade point average.

LATENESS TO SCHOOL AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Lateness to school has a positive relationship with students’ low academic performance. This means that the more students get late to school, the more to measuring they low academic performance. This could be due to the fact that (1) students’ inability to attend classes because they could not get to school as at when due, hence, they could not partake in all the school tasks and activities for instance, partaking in the assembly activities; (2) many late students serve punishments like washing toilets, corporal punishment, cutting grasses which make them miss school activities the more. Lateness is linked to time which is its measuring yardstick. It is pertinent to research into the factors responsible for students’ lateness to school as this study of this nature will be of immense significance to the Nigerian Government, school administrators, teachers, school counsellors, students, parents and the entire populace. For instance, through the findings of this study, school counsellors will be able to guide students against arriving late to school. Similarly, the findings of this study will be of immense benefit to parents as they will be able to monitor their wards and ensure they do not go late to school. The entire populace will also benefit from the findings of this study as students who do not arrive late to school are likely to be good instrument for national development in the nearest future. In addition, several studies have been conducted on students’ lateness, however, this study is different from the earlier ones.

CONCLUSION

Conclusively, lateness among students is a major and continuous administrative problem, and there is need for students and parents to help identify and proffer solutions to this quality and disturbing problem that could lead to students’ drop-out from school, and also inefficiency and ineffectiveness on the part of the school administrators, by way of school administration and management; knowing full well that lateness could be reduced by providing free education counseling and discipline among students, in addition to the use of electronic systems, truancy sweep by school heads. It should also be noted that lateness is common among female students, and as such they should be of more concern to the school administrator. Finally, the remedy to any situation is in the situation, thus, the school administrator, should study the peculiar situation and respond as the situation suggests. The fact is no two situations are the same, no matter how similar.