SAFETY AWARENESS, EQUIPMENT AVAILABILITY AND SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE AS CORRELATES OF PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOL SECURITY IN OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

School security is important for effective school management. However, research have shown that there is a high level of insecurity in many public secondary schools in Oyo State, Nigeria, which largely accounts for incidences of bullying, rape and kidnapping. Previous studies focused largely on prevailing factors such as school climate, disciplinary measure and parental involvement with little emphasis on safety awareness, equipment availability and school infrastructure. This study, therefore, was carried out to investigate safety awareness, equipment availability and school infrastructure as correlates of public secondary school security in Oyo State, Nigeria. The study was anchored to the School Climate Theory, while the survey design of correlational type was adopted. The multi-stage sampling procedure was adopted. The purposive sampling technique was used to select three Educational Zones (EZs) with large student population (Ibadan zone 1, Ibadan zone 2 and Oyo zone 4) out of the existing six Educational zones (EZs) in Oyo State. The simple random sampling technique was used to select nine Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the selected EZs. Simple random sampling was used to select 110 secondary schools in the LGAs. The proportionate sampling technique was used to select 623 teachers and550school prefects (students), while the 110 principals were enumerated. The instruments used were Safety Awareness (r=0.75), Equipment Availability (r=0.61), School Infrastructure (r=0.80) and Public Secondary School Security (r=0.79) scales. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s product moment correlation and Multiple regression analysis at 0.05 level of significance. Participants’ age were: teachers (45.5±3.78), students (18.21±2.58) years. Majority of the teachers (61.1%) and students (53.8%) were females, while teachers’ highest educational qualification was Degree/HND (65.1%). The distribution of teachers’ teaching experience was as follows: 1-10years (22.0%), 11-20 years (41.0%), 21-30years (26.0%) and 31-40years (11.0%). Safety awareness (x ̅=2.10), equipment availability (x ̅=1.49) and school infrastructure (x ̅=2.49) were low as against the threshold of 2.50. Students reported security threats such as rape (23.2%), bullying (44.6%) and kidnapping (1.0%). Safety awareness (r=0.39), school infrastructure (r=0.28) and equipment availability (r= 0.27) had significant positive relationships with public secondary school security. Safety awareness, equipment availability and school infrastructure jointly contributed to public secondary school security (F (3,646) =95.44 Adj R2 = 0.37) and accounted for 37.0% of its variance. School infrastructure (β =0.47), safety awareness (β=0.25) and equipment availability (β= 0.03) had significant relative contributions to public secondary school security. Safety awareness, school infrastructure and equipment availability influenced public secondary school security in Oyo State. These factors should be scaledup for improved secondary school security.