Thesis Abstract

<p> </p><p>The study was designed to assess principals’ violation of students’ rights in<br>secondary schools, in Kogi State Nigeria. It aims at finding out the extent to<br>which the principals are aware of students rights, assess the extent to which<br>students right to life, dignity of human person, right to personal liberty, right to<br>fair hearing are being violated by principals. The design used for the study is<br>descriptive survey. Six research questions and six hypotheses guided the study.<br>The target population for the study was 47,388 students, teachers and principals<br>from 345 schools in Kogi State. The sampled population was 6,191 comprising<br>138 principals, 1,794 teachers and 4,259 students from 138 sampled schools.<br>The instrument used for the study was the (PASRVQ) Principals’ Awareness of<br>Students’ Rights Violation Questionnaire. Means and standard deviation were<br>used to answer the research questions. The internal constituency and reliability<br>of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha method. The reliability<br>coefficient of the instrument obtained from cluster A-F is 0.83, 0.69, 0.81, 0.75,<br>0.92, and 0.87 respectively. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Scheffe test were<br>used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The study among<br>others revealed that to a great extent principals are not generally aware of<br>students rights and therefore violate students right to life, dignity of human<br>person, right to personal liberty and right to fair hearing. Accordingly the study<br>recommended that principals should be made properly aware of students<br>rights, through the conferences, seminars, workshops and further studies.<br>School rules should be made public, school plant facilities should be made safe<br>for use, students are to be given opportunity to express opinions and be involved<br>in decision making process. Teacher capacity building curriculum should<br>incorporate element of education law and human rights education should be<br>incorporated in secondary school curriculum.</p><p>ix</p><p>13</p> <br><p></p>

Thesis Overview

<p> </p><div><p><strong>INTRODUCTION</strong></p><p><strong>Background of the Study</strong></p><p>The school as a social institution has the social and constitutional<br>responsibilities of educating the students and protecting them from the abuse of<br>their rights and privileges. Effective students’ personnel administration demands<br>that various administrative activities and services should be carried out by the<br>school, within the established rules and regulations, in order to ensure total<br>development of the students Bassey, Arop, Akpama &amp; Ayang, (2012). This<br>means that school administrators shall not only be knowledgeable about<br>students’ rights, but should also be proficient in the protection and promotion of<br>these rights (Nakpodia, 2011).</p><p>The principal co-ordinates and ensures that the various process of<br>administrative activities and services are carried out by the school within an<br>established rules and regulations so as to ensure total development of the<br>students in a given school. According to Nakpodia (2009) principals are also<br>Teachers in Nigerian schools system, who in their position in-loco-parentis to<br>the children in their charge act, reasonably in this capacity, provided their<br>actions are in accordance with general and approved educational practice,,, The<br>principal is the leader of secondary school or Chief Executive Officer of<br>1<br>14<br>secondary school administration. Principals as leaders have the key for<br>achieving sustainable enormous education reforms like accountability, standard,<br>test, enhancing legal rights of students, site based management, school climate<br>and turning schools into professional learning communities Fullan(2002).</p></div><h3></h3><br> <br><p></p>