Impact of Socio-Economic Status on Academic Performance among Ninth Grade Secondary School Students in Two Diocesan Colleges in Mauritius

Over recent years, there has been a decrease in the performance of students especially in mixed ability colleges in Mauritius. This study investigated the relationship between academic performance and the socio-economic status (SES). The findings showed that the students’ performances at schools were affected by social, cultural and economic factors. Social factors like indiscipline, sickness, lack of interest in school, broken families and substance abuse were the main factors identified to affect negatively the performance of students in schools. It was also observed that due the lack of parents involvement, the academic performance of the students were also affected.

In Mauritius, the academic performance of students in secondary schools, is a matter of great concern for parents and has been on the agenda of the government since a long time. The quality of education at secondary level has become a major problem especially with the re-introduction of obtaining 5 credits at School Certificate "O" level to secure a place in Grade 12. Indeed, the decreasing performance of students especially in mixed ability colleges have increased. Data collected from Statistical office (CSO, 2020) shows that there is a complete decline in academic performances of students for both female and male gender. There has been a drop of 4.1% over the past five years in academic performance. One of the factors that could have contributed to this drop in the academic performance is the SES background of the students.
A review of the literature shows that many studies have been carried out to examine the different SES factors that influence student's performances in schools. However, such studies on how SES affects the students' performance in schools have not been carried out in Mauritius. This study aims to investigate the academic performance of students from different SES background and explores how their performance varies socially. The extent to which factors such as family, personal and other circumstantial factors impact on the students' academic performance is discussed.
This research used data on students' academic performance from different SES backgrounds and also considered the performance of students in national examinations in their Grade 9 for their National Certificate of Education (NCE) in the academic year 2020.
The following objectives steered this study: i) To determine how the students' school performance were affected by social factors. ii) To investigate the impact of economic factors on students' school performance. iii) To evaluate how cultural factors affect students' school performance. iv) To establish ways to enhance students' academic performance v) To propose a new leadership model of learning and teaching in these two colleges considered for this study.

Methodology
For this study, the following hypotheses were used to address socio-economic relationship with educational attainment: • Hypothesis 1: There would be significant difference on academic achievement of students between high and low SES. • Hypothesis 2: There would be significant difference on academic achievement of students from high and low income families. • Hypothesis 3: There would be significant difference on pupils' performance and their socioeconomic family background. The study was carried out in two diocesan secondary schools in an urban area on the west side of Mauritius. The two secondary schools fall in a region considered to have low economic status students and where the academic performances of the two colleges have considerably fallen over the recent five years (MES, 2020). A sample size of 250 people consisting of 200 ninth grade pupils, 45 teachers, 2 deputy rectors and 3 rectors was used.
Questionnaires were administered to teachers, deputy rectors, rectors and the ninth grade pupils and interviews were carried out with parents. The questionnaires gathered information on the socio-economic, family background, peer pressure and cultural factors affecting pupils' performance. Income of the parents, their level of education and occupation were also used as a measure of economic status of the family. The questionnaire consisted of both Likert-style, multiple choice questions, open ended and closed ended questions.
Additionally, the data set consisted of the Grades 7 to 9 examination results of the students. These results, which were made available by the school management, were helpful in determining whether there is a relationship between SES and students' academic performance over a period of time. A pilot study of the survey was carried out to determine the relevance and reliability of the questions.

Ethnicity
The study sought to determine if ethnicity of the students had an impact on the students' performance ( 100.0 Table 1 shows the majority of students were of Roman Catholic (46.9%), followed by Hindus (24 %) and of Islamic faith (21.1 %). The study aimed at determining if ethnicity affected students' performance. The above data was cross-tabulated with the students' academic average marks obtained during the survey study (Table 2).  -tailed) .660 N 133 140 A Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.038 was obtained showing no significant relationship between ethnicity and students' performance hence going in line with Runs et al. (2018) who found that there is no significant relationship between ethnicity and academic performance. Table 3 looks at the social factors that affect the performance of the students academically in these two diocesan colleges under study.

Economic factors affecting the performance of students
The purpose here was to find out the economic factors that affects students' performance. The findings from Table 4 shows that 41% of the pupils failed in their recent examinations. In this research study, the socioeconomic status of the parent was investigated and the results were cross-tabulated with the pupils' performance in their examinations. The data analysis was carried out in two stages: (i) Formation of socio-economic classes (high socio-economic status, middle socio-economic status and lower socio-economic status) (ii) Determination of correlating coefficient to find if a relationship between SES and average scores existed Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online) Vol.12, No.17, 2021  100.0 It was found that 42% pupils were from high SES, 28% were from middle SES and 30% were from lower SES. The academic performance of the pupils was correlated with their parental SES using Pearson correlation on SPSS software, Table 5. Table 5. Correlation between students' performance and their parents SES Parents SES Pearson Correlation .204 * Sig. (2-tailed) .016 N 140 *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
A correlation coefficient of 0.204 was obtained, whose significance at the 0.05 level implied there was an association between pupil's academic performance and their parental SES. This means that there was a relationship between the pupils' low performance and their parental SES but their poor performances could not be only due to their low SES. However, these findings also indicated that pupils' academic performance could not be linked only to their SES but there were also other underlying reasons for their low academic performances. Hardy (2006) mentions that the SES of one pupil may not be the only determining factor of academic success. In addition, a study carried out in Nigeria (Machebe & Ifelunni, 2014) on the parental social economic status showed the opposite results from this current study carried out in Mauritius. They found no significant effect on the parental socio-economic status and parental educational background on academic performance of their children.
The background of the family members of the students was also investigated ( Table 6). The data in Table 6 indicates that 38% of the parents of low SES did only up to primary education and 23% left school while 10% never went to school. The research data further demonstrated that the majority of parents of low SES reached only up to primary level of formal schooling with 10% up to secondary while only one guardian reached primary school.
*Source: Data includes Mother, Father (P) and guardian (G) when compared to low, middle and high SES. Furthermore, for Middle SES, the status of their school attendance revealed that only 16% stopped at primary level, 35% went to secondary level and 20% went to university level. The study also found that family members in the Middle SES had graduated from the university (20%). Parents in the high socioeconomic status category were found to have higher level of education than those of low or middle SES. As indicated, 43% went to university (including guardians) having a degree, postgraduate certificate or a university diploma and 24% went up to secondary schooling.
These results obtained above were cross-tabulated with the pupil's average scores and the results obtained established a weak positive correlation between their academic achievement and the level of education of their parents (Pearson coefficient r = 0.20). The results demonstrated that there was no significant evidence between sole interrelationships of academic performance and parental educational background.
However, parents' level of education do influence the pupil's academic performance, as an uneducated parent may not be in a good position to give proper assistance to their children. The findings of this study go in line with Ngatiari (2011) who hypothesized that parental level of education do enhance children's learning and their academic achievement positively (Ayoo, 2002). This study also tried to investigate how much parental Journal of Education and Practice www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1735 (Paper) ISSN 2222-288X (Online) Vol.12, No.17, 2021 involvement in school activities influenced their learning outcomes. The majority of the respondents affirmed that parental involvement do encourage children to do better but different responses were obtained, in both colleges. The response rate was higher in the Girls College (63%) compared to the boys college (47%) of parental involvement. Musgrave (2009) established that parental involvement in school activities do enhance pupils' academic achievement.
This research work has conceptualized that parental occupation and their implication in their children academic performance would be a significant variable to determine the SES of parents and academic success. This study investigated on the occupation of the pupil's parents and the effect on their academic performances. Parental occupation are among the major factors affecting student's performance academically (Murithi, 2015;Usaini & Abubakar, 2015). From the study carried out, the responses of the students when asked whether their parents' occupation affected their education, most were affirmative. Most of those coming from high SES and middle SES had parents with permanent jobs (72.6%) while a minority from low SES either were on contract (16.6%) or involved in casual works (10.9%). The students also responded that even 41.7% of their parents were always there for them, the majority were described as being busy (58.2%) and 58.3% among these students rarely got the emotional support wanted. Like the students, the teachers also noted that some parental occupations deprived their children from giving them time for academic progress or any supports they needed.
Pearson's correlation coefficient was calculated to determine whether there existed a relationship between the pupil's academic performance and their parents' occupation ( Table 7). The correlation coefficient, r was 0.04 that reflected a weak correlation indication that these two are not significantly linked. .0 This study also investigated whether the school factors such as infrastructure and adequacy of school equipment had influence on pupils' academic performance. 248 people including rectors, parents, teachers and pupils participated in this particular survey (Table 8).   Table 9 shows the regression of school variables to academic performances. A β-coefficient value near zero indicates no correlation between the variables. Adequacy of classrooms (0.160) and workshops (0.255) may be considered as the best predictors of positive influence on academic performance but they have no much effect on performances as such. This somehow goes in line with Nkinyangi (2003) findings that school physical facilities such as classrooms or workshops have no such effects on students' academic performance.

Peer Pressure
The 175 pupils' views on peer pressure were cross-tabulated with their academic performance and the results were tabulated below:  Temitope and Christy (2015) mentioned that peer pressure do affect students' academic performance. Bullying (β = 0.101), their friends activities (stay at home, working, attends schools, drug dealers) having a coefficient of 0.186 are the best predictors of the influence of peer pressure on academic performance. The less students are bullied, the more positive impact will occur on their academic performance.

Proposed measures to improve the academic performance of students
All the respondents' views on this aspect of the study have been discussed and strategies have been proposed below: • More involvement of educational stakeholders (teachers, parents and managers) • More emphasis on school discipline • Make further provisions by schools Parents-Teachers Association to provide education needs to low SES students • Give psychological or counselling assistance to students (special funding to be invested) • Implement a rewarding system for the students hence helping to motivate the students • Emphasis should be put on the school atmosphere to make a conducive learning area for each and every student to be able to adapt and to make the most of the capacity • Career guidance platform since students' young age.

Proposed leadership style to be adopted to cater for poor academic performance
In this study, one of the aims was to propose a new leadership style that can be adopted by the school management as a pilot project to cater for recent poor performances. This study findings show that parental SES do affect pupils' academic performance but other factors also lead to such poor performances including poor management (being too autocratic), lack of parental involvement, poor teaching leading to students demotivation to work. As such, schools need to: broaden "what counts"; achieve a better balance, or make a choice between competing forces; and ensure that school processes are more organic, democratic and networked (Mulford et al. 2004). Moreover, to achieve better results in schools, the "what" (products) and "how" (school processes) need to be consistent with each other (Mulford et al. 2004).

Leadership challenges
The leadership challenge aims to change the school style of teaching and learning. The aim is to opt for a transformational leadership style while adhering to the Nine Year Schooling. Such style is thought to provide a more powerful way for thinking about school leadership than competing approaches (Mulford et al. 2004). According to Leithwood et al. (2004), transformational leadership seeks to increase the capacity of others to bring about the first order effects of teaching, as it empowers others within the school and facilitates collective visioning (National Research Council., 2001). As such, Leithwood et al. (2004) has illustrated the six dimensions of transformational leadership to bring about constructive academic changes ( Figure 1). Moreover, it enhances teachers' motivation, changes classroom practices, bring about a collective teacher efficacy and organisational learning (OL) and has positive impacts on the pedagogy of the student although being from low or high SES (Leithwood & Jantzi. 2005).
• Setting directions -Building a shared vision -Fostering acceptance of group goals -High performance expectations • Developing people -Providing individual support and consideration -Intellectual stimulation -Providing an appropriate model -Redesigning the organisation • Building collaborative cultures -Restructuring -Building productive relationships with families and communities.
-Connecting the school to its wider environment -Managing the instructional program. • Staffing the program -Providing instructional support -Monitoring school activity -Buffering staff from distractions to their work Figure 1. Six dimensions of transformational leadership

Proposed Model of Leadership -The Leadership for Organizational Learning and Student Outcomes (LOLSO) Model
Here, the model of transformational leadership contributes to organizational learning (OL) which in turns influences the teaching and learning processes. Under this model (Figure 2), staff are valued, hence bringing on more engagement and helps to care for all types of students including those coming from low SES. From the findings of this study, since we cannot change the family status of the students, changes can be brought to the school atmosphere itself, provide supports to students, empowering and valuing the staffs. These factors may help improving academic performances of especially those from low SES families who are much often devalued and lacked motivation to thrive academically. Hence, the LOLSO model helps to improve the school atmosphere.

Conclusion and Recommendation
This study investigated on the relationship between academic performance and the socio economic status (SES) in Mauritius. It looks at how the students' performances at schools were affected by social, cultural factors and economic factors. Social factors like indiscipline, sickness, lack of interest in school, broken families and substance abuse were the main factors identified to affect negatively the performance of students in schools. From the economic factors investigated, no significant difference were found between performance of the students and their parental SES. However, the academic performance of the students are more likely to be affected by the lack of implications of parents in the lives of their children being too concentrated in their works or due to their own disinterest in education. The cultural factors affecting the performance of the students being the school culture, lack of support from the community and students culture all these factors creating demotivated parents, which in turn creates a complete disinterest in the student hence leading to low academic performance. The study concluded that promoting discipline, using a new and different approach of leadership, encouraging parental involvement in school life, additional funding given from the PTA, providing a full time counsellor to students, creating a rewarding system to encourage students and career guidance at all levels are the major measures that can be put in place to help improve students' performance. Peer pressure also do have a direct impact on students' performance. Students who are bullied or have friends who do not attend school (working or drug dealers) tend to be affected negatively and hence are bound to low performance.