Volume 13, Issue 2A and 2B, 2025
Poverty and Early Childhood Education Among Basic Five Pupils in Public Primary Schools in Lagos State, Nigeria
Adeyemi Oladele Mutalib, Tahir Muyideen Babatunde, Akiode Abimbola Oluwatoyin & Agbojeyin Ibiwumi Augustina
Abstract
This study investigated poverty and early childhood education among five
basic pupils in public primary schools in Lagos state, Nigeria. A descriptive
research design of a survey type was used for this study and two null
hypotheses guided the study at a 0.05 significance level. 102 sample were
selected from 10 public primary schools across the state. This study explored
how poverty (socioeconomic status) influenced access to learning resource and
academic performance in early childhood education. A research instrument
titled: Poverty and academic performance instrument (PAPI) used to collect
data on the pupils' academic performances, access to learning resources and
poverty level with reliability coefficient using Cronbach’s Alpha test was 0.79.
The findings revealed that the Person Product Correlation Coefficient (r) of
the variable was .0645 at p-value= 0.000, which means there was a strong
positive relationship between poverty and academic performance and also
there was positive relationship between poverty and access to learning
resources at r(102) = .0472 at p-value= 0.000 at 0.05 level of significance. It
was concluded that there is a need to address the unfairness in early childhood
education in public primary School in Lagos State, through implementing
planned support systems and policies aimed at alleviating the effects of
poverty. The study recommended regular counselling to parents, school,
stakeholders and government through a way of improving access to quality
education for children from low-income families, early childhood education
and Nigerian could take a bold step towards reducing poverty and promoting
sustainable development.
Keywords
early childhood education, poverty, public primary schools.
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