Abstract

The education system is the bedrock of the development of any society. Meaningful development can only occur and be sustained in an environment where every stakeholder is ready and willing to contribute his/her quota. The fluctuating and dwindling academic achievement of students in economics has been of great concern to education stakeholders, as reflected in the past Senior School Certificate Examinations’ results. The study examined the relationship between parents’ involvement in education activities and the performance of students in economics subjects among Federal Unity Colleges in the Southwest of Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select participants. A purposeful sampling strategy was used to select two co-educational Federal Unity Colleges in five states in the Southwest (Osun, Ogun, Ekiti, Lagos and Ondo States). Intact class was used to select SS II Economics students in the selected states. The parents of selected students also participated in the study. Three research questions were answered with the three instruments used in the study. Results revealed that there was a significant positive correlation between parents’ occupation and their degree of participation in school activities (r= 0.74 p<0.05); there was a strong positive relationship between gender of the parent and their degree of provision of education materials (r = 0.85 p< 0.05) and no significant relationship between parents involvement in school activities and students’ academic achievement in Economics. It was further revealed that there was no significant relationship between parents’ provision of education materials and academic achievement in economics. It was recommended that activities that will improve the study habits of students be introduced in schools and monitored .Teachers should give regular assignments for students and marked by the teacher. There should be special day for one-on-one interaction between teachers and parents on students’ academic progress.