Pre-schooling and academic performance of lower Primary School pupils in Zambezi District, Zambia
The primary objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between pre-schooling and academic performance of pre-schooled lower primary school pupils in Zambezi district, Zambia. The study also assessed whether socio-economic status (SES) of parents, pupils gender (sex), age and parent-child interactive behavior were related to academic performance of pre-schooled and non pre-schooled lower primary school pupils in Numeracy and Literacy. This study employed a quantitative cross sectional design to investigate the relationship between pre-schooling and academic performance of lower primary school pupils in Numeracy and Literacy. The sample size was 240 participants (120 pupils and 120 parents and guardians). This study used Multivariate Stepwise Binary Logistic Regression to analyze the data. The above statistic was used in order to investigate the relationship between pre-schooling and explore whether parents SES, pupils’ gender (sex), age and parent-child interactive behavior influenced the relationship between pre-schooling and academic performance of pre-schooled and non pre-schooled lower primary school pupils. The results indicate that there is a relationship between pre-schooling and performance in Literacy and Numeracy in Grade One and Two. This relationship was statistically significant at p< 0.05. The results also showed that age was related to academic performance. Older pupils performed better than younger pupils. This result was significant at p< 0.05. However, it was shown that there is no significant relationship between socio-economic status of parents, sex, parent-child interactive behavior and academic performance of pupils in Literacy and Numeracy. In conclusion, the study has shown that pre-schooling and age are related to academic performance of pre-schooled lower primary school pupils in Literacy and Numeracy, but SES of parents, sex and parent-child interactive behavior are not related to academic performance of the children in the rural setting of Zambezi where this study was conducted. The study’s recommendations are that the Ministry of Education to scale up the implementation of pre-schools in government schools. This may provide easy access to pre-school education especially in rural areas where pre-schools are very few if any. Parents of children in rural Zambia should actively be encouraged to take their children to pre-school before they start Grade One, since results of this study show that pre-schooling is related to academic performance of lower primary school pupils.
Pre-School education, Learning,Pyshology of
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