Influence of School Safety on the Academic Performance of Pupils in Public Primary Schools in Oredo Local Government Area

Influence of School Safety on the Academic Performance of Pupils in Public Primary Schools in Oredo Local Government Area

CHAPTER ONE

The specific objectives therefore include:

To know the level of school safety of Pupils in Public Primary schools in Oredo Local Government Area.
2.To know the level of academic performance of pupils in Public Primary Schools in Oredo Local Government Area.
To identify the influence of school safety in Public Primary schools in Oredo Local Government Area.
To identify the danger school safety poses on the academic performance of pupils in public primary schools in Oredo Local Government Area.

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

Conceptual Review

School safety

The term safe school has been defined by Donmez and Guven (2002) as places where pupils, teachers and staff feel physically, psychologically and emotionally free, and where enriched school programs hone pupils’ skills. Ogel, Tan and Eke (2005) have defined the term as places where positive relations exist between managers and teachers; teachers and pupils; pupils themselves; and school staff with each other and pupils.

The physical environment of a school or learning space, including its surrounding neighborhood, is crucial to children’s safety and security. To increase school safety, fences should be built to protect children from harmful outside inﬂuences, such as drug peddling, sexual harassment or physical violence. Constant supervision of the school and schoolyard is usually necessary. Expansive schoolyards with many large buildings or unprotected areas may need additional staff or other security measures, such as emergency notiﬁcation or alarm systems that can alert pupils and teachers to an ongoing emergency. (UNICEF, 2009).

According to Orpinas, Horne and Staniszewski (2003), safe schools implement effective instructional approaches, are aware of genuine pupil problems, and have a culture of respect and adequate physical equipment.

A good study of climate, safety and enjoyment are assumed to be necessary conditions for a good learning environment. In several studies, it has also been found that the climate in a school co- varies with achievement (Hattie, 2009; Johnson & Stevens, 2006; Papanastasiou, 2008; Uline & Tschannen- Moran, 2008). However, factors that have been found to correlate with pupil achievement are ‘a calm classroom climate’, teachers’ management of disruptive behavior, and pupils’ feelings of safety in school (Ma &Willms, 2004).

Some conceptualizations of school safety or safe learning environments are very broad, but from the standpoint of this literature review, Prinsloo’s (2006) definition is more suitable because of its sharp focus on the problems of school violence. In that publication, Prinsloo stated, “A safe school may be defined as one that is free of danger and where there is an absence of possible harm; a place in which non- educators, educators, and all learners may work, teach, and learn without fear of ridicule, intimidation, humiliation, or violence.

CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Design

The study has a descriptive survey design that utilized questionnaires to obtain data from the respondents. It is a follow- up of two previous researches in this area by the researcher and his postgraduate pupils who have studied the influence of school safety on the performance of secondary school pupils in Oredo LGA Edo. and influence of school safety on the psychosocial adjustment of secondary school pupils in Edo State, Nigeria (Ojukwu & Onuoha, 2016). According to Nwankwo (2011) descriptive surveys aim at collecting data from a given sample of population and described probably certain features of the sample as well as generalizing them to the entire population. This study is regarded as a descriptive survey because the researcher collected data from a large sample of teachers from Edo state secondary schools. It described how school safety affected academic performance of pupils in Edo state.

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULT PRESENTATION

Demographic information of respondents

Table 4.1 Gender of head teachers and teachers

As can be observed from Table 4.1 majority of the head teachers 72.7 percent were male while majority of the teachers 61.2 percent were female. These findings imply that despite the fact that there are more female teachers than male teachers, more males are in school leadership than females. It is thus an indication that men are more authoritative than their female counterparts making them more efficient to deal with violence issues in public primary schools.

CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

In conclusion, the results from this study have extended and called for more research regarding insecurity and the school environment vis-a-vis students’ academic performance. Students’ poor academic performance has for some time been attributed to factors such as teacher’s ineffectiveness, poor intelligent quotient of the students, and poor mental alertness of the students among others with less or no reference to the effect of insecurity of the school environment and its related factors. However, in the global search for the poor academic performance of Nigerian secondary school students, educators and psychologists have realized that many students perform poorly in their academic work not because they do not possess the mental ability to do well but because they have been affected by other factors. Hence, this study investigated the effect of insecurity of school environment on the academic performance of secondary school students in Edo State.

Major findings showed that insecurity of the school environment significantly affects the academic performance of secondary school students while smoking of Indian hemp, hard drugs, student’s, cult, violent activities, kidnapping, armed robbery, parents confrontation of teachers, sexual harassment, rape, using of guns and bullying of junior by senior students among others are major factors that constitute insecurity of the school environment. As a result of the insecurity of the school environment, students become afraid of school as they feel insecure and hence they skip school, miss lessons which eventually affect them during examinations. Besides, they lose interest in school and academic activities which eventually lead to truancy and boys leaving school to take up trading while girl’s dropout and settle for marriage. It was also revealed that there is a significant difference in insecurity of the school environment between schools located in urban and rural areas while insecurity of the school environment has significant effect on the academic performance of male and female students.

Recommendations from the study

Based on the findings and conclusions of the study, the researcher made the following recommendations;

The school administration and teachers should enforce strict conflict resolution strategies in all schools to ensure that pupils maintain high academic performance in friendly school environment.
All school stakeholders should create awareness positive ways so as to ensure that gender difference does not influence conflict in school in primary
The school administration should ensure that school‟s rules and regulation are visible displayed on school notice boards and some walls and also ensure that these rules are outlined during school
The school community should treat every boy and girl individually to ensure that they realize their full potential and not categorized as groups in conflict in school
Teachers should encourage pupils to join and form different recreation clubs in schools like debate clubs, science congress and sport groups to ensure that peer orientation achieves positive influence among
School community should put up measures to boost pupils conflict in school by instilling conflict in school in all children right from
The government through the ministry of education should organize for more seminars and workshops in line with the new constitution and children’s rights to sensitize teachers and head teachers in primary schools on new measures to improve conflict in school among pupils.
School administration should enforce strict conflict in school to ensure that pupils especially in mixed school observe school rules and regulation
All the public secondary school stakeholders should participate in setting up schools rules and regulation so as to ensure that pupils embrace of the laid down rules as they will feel they possess these rules rather than being imposed on them.

REFERENCES

Adhiambo B, Samatwa R. (2011). Assessment of conflict management and resolution in public primary schools in Kenya: A case study of Nyakach District International Research Journal, 4. 1074-1088.
Ageng„a A. R. and Simatwa E M.W. (2011). Assessment of conflict management and resolution in public primary schools in Kenya: A case study of Nyakach District. International Research Journal2(4), 1074-1088 April 2011, Available online@ http://www.interesjournals.org/ER.
Alexander, R. (2008). Education for All, the Quality Imperative and the Problem of Pedagogy. Brighton, UK, University of Sussex, Centre for International Education, Consortium for Research on Educational Access. (CREATE Pathways to Access Research Monograph, 20.).
Anderson L. (2009). Research in education. Sydney: Allen Unwin. Anderson S. (2011). Conflict management. London: Sage.
Babbie E. (2012). The practice of research. Belmont: Woodsworth. Barker B C. (2009). Investigating of conflict. London: Cassel;
Bermingham, D. (2010). UK policy on aid to conflict affected countries.
Background paper for EFA Global Monitoring Report 2011 Blumberg C. (2008). Research methods. Boston: Irwin.
Broekhof, K. (2000). Conflict Resolution in Schools: Report on the International Seminar held on March 2^nd and 3^rd 2000 in Soesterberg, the Netherlands.
Brookins, M. (2010). The Effects of Conflict Within an Organization. Towson University: Demand Media
Buchere, P. (2011). The Training of Provincial Administrators and its Role in Conflict Management within Rift Valley Province, Kenya. Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, PhD Thesis, Unpublished.
Buvinic, M. and Morrison, A. R. (2009). Introduction, overview, and future policy agenda. Buvinic, M., Morrison, A. R., Ofosu-Amaah, A. and Sjöblom, M. (eds), Equality for Women: Where Do We Stand on Millennium Goal 3? Washington, DC, World Bank.

Related Topics:

Other Topics