Parents' Influence on the Selection of Choice Schools for Their Children/Adolescents in Sub-Sahara African Countries.

"Education is the most powerful weapon that can be used to change the world." Many families in African countries have taken solace in education as means of liberating and empowering members for better living. This investigative study explored the factors that influence parents in their choice of schools for their children using Nigerian contexts as a sub-Saharan country for others. The aim of this study was to investigate various factors that determine choice of schools by parents for their children, and to determine whether parents' influence on the choice of school affect the academic performance of these adolescents. The theoretical framework of rational choice theory, market theory and choice theory provided empirical evidence. 100 senior secondary school students and 100 parents from Lagos were the participants for this study using the stratified sampling procedure. A descriptive cross sectional survey design with self-constructed questionnaire was used as the research instrument. The validity of the instrument was tested using the expert opinion method while the reliability was tested with a test re-test method which indicated a co-efficient of 0.71. The correlation coefficient method was used to analyze the data collected from the experiment at five percent level of significance, while five hypotheses were tested. The findings of the study revealed that there is a statistically significant relationship among parents' influence, socioeconomic and educational background, parents' educational aspirations for their children, adolescents' academic performance, parents' expectation on quality of education and choice of schools as related to cost of education. Recommendations were made to attract parents to schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]