Al-Hikmah University Journal

The study examines the corrosive effect on students’ performance in secondary schools in kogi state. It has two objectives which are to examine the socioeconomic status of parent on students’ performance in secondary schools in Kogi state and to assess the effect of poverty on students’ performance in secondary schools in kogi state. The research questions and the null hypotheses are in line with the research objectives. The population of the study comprised 80principals, 2260 teachers and 4000 SS1 and SS2 Students drawn from the 21 Local Government Area of Kogi State. Sample size was determined using percentage and stratified random sampling technique and the total sample size was 351 which comprised 21 principals, 233 teachers and 300 students.  Self- structured questionnaire was designed to elicit response from the respondents. The data collected was analyzed using mean and standard deviation, the null hypotheses was tested using Analysis of Variance at 0.05 level of significance. The findings show that socio- economic status of parent affect students’ performance as some of the low economic status parents are unable to pay school fees as at when due which often results to students being driven away from school and thus affect the performance of the students. Students’ behavior and learning is affected by emotional imbalance where the students cannot meet up with the financial demands in the school. The study recommends that stakeholders in Education should give equal opportunities to those students raised in the low socio-economic status by considering their plight and adopt ways to recover the school fees without driving the students away from school.