EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY AND STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE IN JAMB COMPUTER-BASED TEST IN KEBBI STATE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF RURAL-URBAN SENIOR SECONDRY SCHOOLS IN JEGA EDUCATION ZONE

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study on Educational Inequality and Students’ Performance in JAMB Computer-Based Test was conducted in the year 2017 – 2019 in Rural and Urban Senior Secondary School in Jega Education Zone, Kebbi State, Nigeria. Most of the schools reached out were public schools with 90% and the private schools were 10%. This wider margin could be due to the fact that the stakeholders in the zone are not concerned in the establishment of private schools. However, most of the secondary schools are in the urban areas constituted 65%, while 35% are in the rural areas. The distribution of schools in to urban and rural is significant because urban schools are more likely to have access to computer facilities than rural schools. This situation is likely to bring about inequality among schools. The schools were selected in form of category of private and public schools, to enable the researcher to draw conclusion about educational inequality and students’ performance in the computer-based examination. The study adapted mixed method of data collection and data analysis of instruments. The procedure for data collection was through personal visitation to the Senior Secondary Schools in rural and urban areas with the help of staff from zonal Ministry of Education in Jega. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics in the form of simple percentages and frequencies. The findings of this study provide up-to date information to the policy makers such as recruitment of sufficient computers teachers in both urban and rural schools that would teach basic knowledge of computer to the students; provide enable environment and computer laboratories that are capable of accommodating the students to enable them acquire basic computer skills and applications and also the study has the capacity to bridge the gap in the existing body of literature on educational inequality and students’ performance in JAMB Computer-Based Test. There is no doubt that Nigerian State in collaboration with JAMB decided to introduce and adopted as well as implemented Computer-Based for UTME 2012 with a view to inhabiting the rate of examination misconduct, and speeding up the release of the results.