CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1   Background to the Study
Before the ages of 9 and 10, majority of the child’s behaviors is directly influenced by his or her parents. However, after this age range, which coincides with their leaving for secondary schools, the child, especially the boy child, tends to turn to his or her peers for advice and influence. This can be a good development and at the same time a disadvantageous one in that first, it is a very quick mode of socialization. From a child’s peers he is much more enthusiastic to learn and quickly than he would with his immediate family. So that he quickly imbibes the various unspoken cultural and social codes of respect, collective understanding of things and a broader worldview than that offered to him by his parents.
At any event, this can also be disadvantageous because the child’s peers also happen to always consist of children his age margin; children who are curious and highly experimental and who do not have the answers they seek or have full grasp of the consequences of their actions. What could go wrong in such a precarious arrangement is a list of acquired habits that are counterproductive of the idea behind the child’s education; one of which is drug abuse.
Against this background, this research work is taking it upon itself to study the problems of drug abuse on student academic performance in Secondary school.
1.2   Statement of the Problem
Academic excellence requires much more than good teachers, conducive environment, adequate reading materials and sound curriculum. More than these it requires that the subject, that is the student, be of sound psychological state and the child’s willingness to actively participate in this process of self development. This process has to be cast in the child’s mind as being of utmost priority. In the event that this soundness of mind cannot be met owing to say a mental defect, arrangements are made to adapt to such an illness. However, drug abuse has poised itself against this very important criterion for good learning. And it is rife in the basic level of education namely primary and secondary schools and mostly in the latter. This research work aims at studying this problem and possibly proffering feasible and qualitative solution in the end.