School Plant Security Management and Students’ Academic Achievement in Public Secondary Schools in Akwa Ibom State.

Abstract

The study examined school plant security management and students‟ academic achievement in public secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State. Two research questions were raised and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The design of the study was ex-post facto. The study population consisted of 48, 840 SSII students and 6755 teachers in 235 public secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State. The sample comprised 977 SSII students and 811 teachers in 118 Secondary Schoolswhich were sampled, using multistage sampling procedure. Two instruments were used for data collection. They are researcher developed checklist and questionnaire respectively titled “School Plant Security Availability Checklist (SPSAC) and School Plant Security Utilization Questionnaire (SPSUQ)”. SPSUQ was responded to by both the teachers and students. The reliability co-efficient of the instrument was determined using the Cronbach Alpha statistic. The Reliability index of 0.82 was obtained. Mean and Standard Deviation were used to answer the research questions while Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level. The findings of the study are that lacks of security devices in the school affect negatively students‟ academic achievement in English Language, Mathematics and Biology. The study recommended that there is need to overhaul the existing policy on school plant security as to ensure proper provision and utilization of the devices. It also recommended that government should make available suitable security devices and all the materials needed to make them functional.