Students’ Entry Qualification and Academic Performance in Basic Schools of Nursing in Enugu State between 1995 and 1999

This study was a descriptive study of the correlation type, carried out to find out the relationship between entry qualification and academic performance in two basic schools of nursing in Enugu State, South-East, Nigeria, between 1995 and 1999. The study retrospectively examined the scores of a sample of 390 nursing students. Data were O’ level GCE/SSCE Grades, representing the entry qualification; and the final pre-qualifying examination result scores, representing the final academic performance collected from student records and analyzed based on the formulated hypotheses. Pearson’s product-moment Coefficient of Correlation and t-test were used to compare performances. A positive correlation which was statistically significant was found between entry qualifications and final performance. One of the schools performed better than the other, while sciencebased students performed better than non-science-based students. It was recommended that relevant regulatory bodies should ensure that prospective student nurses get credit passes in all the basic sciences as part of the requirements for admission.