Published Article

ABSTRACT

The study investigated criminality and insecurity in Nigeria: effect on secondary school students’ `awareness in Akwa Ibom State. Four research questions as well as four corresponding hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive survey research design was used for the study. The population of the study consisted of all the twelve thousand, one hundred and two (12,102) SS2 students in the two hundred and forty-three (243) public secondary schools in the State. A multi stage procedure including stratified purposive and simple random sampling technique was used in selecting six hundred (600) SS2 students from thirty (30) public secondary schools in the area under study. A 17-item questionnaire titled Effect and Awareness of Criminality and Insecurity in Secondary Schools in Nigeria Questionnaire (EACISSNQ) was used in the collection of data. The instrument was validated by three (3) experts in Measurement and Evaluation. A reliability coefficient of 0.75 was obtained using cronbach alpha reliability test. This showed that the instrument was reliable. Research questions were analyzed using mean and standard deviation while hypotheses were analyzed using chi-square statistics. The findings of the study reveal that criminality and insecurity affected secondary school students’ academic performance negatively. It also revealed that secondary school students are aware of the problem as well as the safety measures to observe while in school, finally, the study revealed that secondary school students are aware of the possible remedies to criminality and insecurity in schools. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that perimeter fencing should be provided in secondary schools, well-trained security personnel should be employed to secure the schools and secondary school students should be taught security studies.