by Dr.Liew

Created on: May 18, 2008

Very often when a student scores low in an examination, he or she will blame it on the teachers. I strongly disagree with the above notion simply because a student failure to achieve high test score depends on many factors. In my opinion, teachers should not be held accountable for low student test scores.

The most important factors that contribute to the low test scores are the socio-economic factors. Socio-economic factors refer to the parental income, education, occupation, home environment etc. According to a research on factors affecting Grade 3 student performance in Ontario conducted by Tremblay, Ross and Berthelot(2001), students from higher socio-economic backgrounds performed better than those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. In addition, achievement was higher in schools located in higher socio-economic neighbourhoods, and students in urban schools outperformed those in rural schools.

Students form lower socio-economic background normally do not perform so well academically in school because very likely they do not have a conducive home environment to study. Parents from such background are normally having multiple jobs in order to meet end needs so they have no time to educate their children at home. Besides, they usually have lower education level therefore not able to help their children in their school work. On top of that, students from lower socio economic background don't behave so well. Very often they pose disciplinary problems in school and cannot concentrate in their studies. Many of them also play truancy and miss classes.

The second factor that could affect students' academic achievements could be due to schools' infrastructure. Schools' infrastructure is decided by the government and it is beyond the control of the teachers. Schools which are well equipped with facilities will provide better learning environment to the students while schools with poor facilities will not be able to set up the best learning environment, these will definitely contribute to the difference in academic achievement in the above schools.

Lastly, the factor that might affect students' academic achievements could be of genetic in nature. Undeniably children are born with different level of intelligence, some are smarter than others. As a teacher myself I have noticed that many students could learn fast even with minimal guidance while some students learn at a very slow pace and need a lot of repetitions before they can grasp a concept.

In a nutshell, there are many factors that can contribute to the academic performance of the students, therefore teachers should not be held accountable for low students test scores.

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