EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES AND SAFETY OF STUDENTS IN NIGERIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Abstract

The primary purpose of the teaching and learning process is to bring about in the learner desirable change in behaviour. This process does not take place in a vacuum but rather in an environment structured to facilitate learning. Educational facilities constitute the major components of both direct and indirect action elements in the environment of learning. This therefore calls for the need for it to be properly managed to ensure effective teaching and learning. Unfortunately, observations made by the researchers revealed that facilities are not properly managed in most secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State as there are dilapidated buildings, broken chairs, desks and tables, broken windows and leaking roofs, cracked walls, blown off roofs, bushy surroundings, fallen fences are common phenomena in most secondary schools in the State. These points to the fact that, in most schools, the safety of lives and property of students and staff are not guaranteed, as most of the students receive lectures under hazardous environments. Hence, there is the need for educational facilities to be properly managed to ensure safety of lives and property in schools. It was in the light of the foregoing that this position paper examined educational facilities: appropriate strategy for public school safety management in Nigeria school system.