CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

It is the duty of government to make and implement policies that will see to the betterment of its people. It is their duty to create order and an enabling environment for the flourishing of its people and cater to the future of the said people. In time, the government and society at large would be delineated into bits of structures which ideally should work together for common goal.

However, as society grows and the complexities of governance and particularly policy making widens, certain policies aimed at strengthening a section of governance and general well-being of people begin to distort the aims of the others and vice versa. Using the Nigeria society as a case study, one easily recognizes that one of the major, of not the major, problems of Nigeria is unity especially among the various ethnic groups that make up the country. To combat this the central government and the state governments make policies that attempts to close the gap of differences and foster unity. One of such is universities having to adopt a quota system for candidates from other ethnic groups to encourage them to come to school in zones that are not there’s and to boost the literacy level in parts where it is lacking deeply. A policy such as this, while encouraging unity more often than not negatively affect the educational quality of the universities and consequently affecting their activities.

Other times it is uninformed policies like fund distribution that affect academic activities. When lecturers and non academic staff members are owed salaries they go on strikes which directly affect the academic activities in the universities within that state.

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

It might not directly look it but educational policies on say funding, appointments, admissions, research, etc, come under political ratification. This is because even though the educational sector works on a system, government has to habitually make and remake policies in running it. And like everything under an outside influence, some of the policies directly or indirectly related to the educational sectors impact both positively and negatively on its activities.

This is problem that has called the present research work into being- to study the impact of government policy on Academic activities in Ondo state of Nigeria.

1.3   RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1.3.1      Do government policies directly affect academic activities in the state or are they merely remote causes of some of offsets.

1.3.2      What are these policies that impact

1.4    OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this research work is to adequately and satisfactorily study the impact of government policy on academic activities in Ondo state. This is carried out with the aim of designing ways of reducing it’s negative impact on the academic calendar.

Again, the findings and recommendations that are proffered in this word are informed by the hope of giving government workable measures to put in place in this regard so as to ensure a smooth and undisrupted sessions which are hardly the situation in Ondo state and Nigeria in general.

This work aims also at developing materials that will help lobby government into establishing a commission mandated to checking and reducing undesirable impacts of government policies on academic activities in the state.

1.5   SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

However government policies impact on the academic activities of schools in the state, it is usually a result of positive aims in view. So that what is needed is a deep study of these impacts which would present to policy makers safest ways to manoeuvre through them.

Before now, the question that has brought this work to light has not been grappled with, at least not in the way that is proposed to be done here. Therefore, this work is of importance to other states and schools outside Ondo state.

1.6   RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

The working assumptions upon this research work is begun includes:

• That government policies directly and indirectly impact upon the academic activities of schools in the state.
• Often times these impacts are more negative than positive.

1.7   SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The focus of this study is on the academic activities. In the case of universities, the impacts of government policy on non academic departments would not be treated in anyway but may be made reference to.

The instances and working hypothesis will be limited to that of schools and school boards in Ondo state Nigeria and more emphasis will be laid on the kinds of impacts that are peculiar to the state while those shared with other Nigerian states will be discussed after.

1.8   LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The major limiting factor in the course of this research is in the coalition of the research data. In order to gather adequate material for the study, the present writer has to go through the various schools within the state.

1.9   DEFINITION OF TERMS

Policy

This refers to a course of action and procedures formulated for use in an organization for particular issues.