Book Maintenance Practice among Primary School Pupils in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria
OLAJIDE, Stephen Billy

Abstract
The role of textbook is vital in language learning. Hence, teachers, parents, school administrators, proprietors, government and other stakeholders attach importance to the provision of prescribed textbooks in school. English language dominates official communication in Nigeria, and enjoys an unequalled status in the country’s education. However, learner performance in the language over the years has been worrisomely low. Many factors have been responsible for the poor performance, prominent among which is inadequacy of instructional materials. That learner attitude to instructional materials also matters has been suggested in the literature. Thus, the present study set out to describe textbook maintenance practice among Primary School pupils in Ilorin, Kwara State Nigeria. The sample for the study were 200 randomly Primary Six pupils from 10 schools in the three local governments that made up Ilroin. Four research questions and two hypotheses were generated. The research hypotheses were tested using  the chi-square and t-test respectively. Findings from the study revealed that gender and school type have significant influence on textbook maintenance practice among primary school pupils in Ilorin. Consequently, it was recommended that teachers, proprietors, government, parents and publishers should encourage the students to cultivate the right attitude to English (and other) textbooks.

Full Text: PDF