Sexual Harassment Bill and The Missing Link Between Lecturers and Students: Implications for Job Security of Educators

Abstract

The study aimed to establish the missing link between lecturers and students on the sexual harassment bill considered by the Senate (the apex law making body of Nigeria) and the implications for job security of lecturers(educators) in the nation. Tis was prompted by the level of moral decadence among students and the vulnerability of male lecturers who are regularly emotionally, psychologically and physically sexually harassed yet, are seen as sexual harassers as the bill is literally directed against them without considering students as accomplices. the study adopted a descriptive design; it was guided by two research questions and two null hypotheses. The population of the study comprised all lecturers and students of tertiary institutions in Delta State, Nigeria while the sample size consisted of 600 respondents (200 lecturers, 400 students) accidentally selected from four purposively selected institutions (two state universities, one federal college of education, and one state polytechnic). The instrument for data collection was a researcher’s self-developed questionnaire with a 4-point rating scale. It was validated by two experts while the reliability was established through a trial test. The split-half method of test was used and the data collected were tested for consistency with the Cronbach Alpha formular at 0.05 level of significance and a consistency value of 0.81 was achieved and the instrument was adjudged reliable. 600 copies of the instrument were administered to the respondents while 571 copies representing 95% of the total number were returned. Descriptive and inferential statistics of mean score and standard deviation were used for analysis while t-test was used for the test of the hypotheses. Findings in the study reveal among other things that, the sexual harassment bill considered by the Nigerian senate was a welcome development but negatively skewed against lecturers as lecturers could be victims of sexual harassment by default and could be wrongly targeted and used against by perceived enemies. The study recommended among other things that, considering the status of tertiary institutions in the nation and sex as a universal activity, when making laws on such activities, a representative of all the stakeholder should be incorporated from the very beginning to avoid perceived or possible oversights