Impact of family background on students’ academic performance in selected ordinary secondary schools in Ilala municipality, Tanzania

This study investigated on impact of family background on students’ academic performance in selected ordinary secondary schools in Ilala Municipality. The specific objectives of the study were three namely; parents or guardians’ education level, family income, and parental guidance and support. The study employed descriptive research design. Data were collected from four public ordinary level secondary schools. The study deployed purposive, random, and stratified sampling techniques. The schools were randomly selected. Stratified sampling technique was used to obtain eighty (80) students while random sampling was used to select twenty (20) parents. Purposive sampling was used to obtain twenty (20) teachers. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, as well as documentary review. The data were analyzed using SPSS (Scientific Package for Social Sciences) to generate frequencies and percentages. The study revealed that family background factors such as parents’ education, family income, parental guidance and support tend to have influence on academic performance of students in ordinary level secondary school in Ilala Municipality. Students whose parents are educated up to post secondary education performed better in examinations than those whose parents had primary level of education. With regard to family income, students from high income families performed better than their counterparts from low income earners. Furthermore, the findings revealed that, the higher the parents level of education the more the guidance and support offered to children. The study recommends that the government through the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training should work closely with other stakeholders to improve the learning environment, training of more science teachers and laboratory technicians in rural and urban areas; the government should take some serious initiative to create conducive environment for self employment so as to raise the economic status of the unemployed people since the family income is very important factor which influence students ‘academic performance. Also parents should create pleasant home environment which inspires children learning with enough learning materials such as books, magazines, and other learning materials, and finally parents should make follow up of their children progress at school including academic performance, students behaviour and regular school attendance.