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International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development April 2012, Vol. 1, No. 2

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School Location and Human Rights Violation in Secondary School Students’ Personnel Administration in

Cross River State, Nigeria

Dr. Bassey, Sam William Department Of Educational Foundations, Cross River University Of Technology, Calabar-Nigeria

e-mail: [email protected]

Dr. (Bar) Arop, Festus Obun Department Of Educational Administration, University Of Calabar, Calabar-Nigeria

Dr. (Mrs.) Elizabeth G. Akpama Department Of Educational Foundations, Cross River University Of Technology, Calabar- Nigeria

e-mail: [email protected]

Dr. Ayang E. E Department of Educational Foundation, Cross River University Of Technology

Calabar-Nigeria

Abstract The purpose of this paper was to determine whether violation of students’ human rights by principals and teachers in Cross River State, Nigeria was influenced by school location. One Thousand (1000) students were selected by the multi-stage sampling technique from fifty (50) secondary schools across the three educational zones of the state. The urban, semi urban and rural student ratio was 210:250:540. The researchers constructed a Student’ Legal Rights Protection Questionnaire (SLRPQ), a 38-item 5-point Likert type questionnaire requiring students to check the frequency of occurrence of specific rights-based items. Face validation was done and reliability (test-retest) ranged between 0.90 and 0.79. Data analysis by the one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) revealed that there were significant differences in students’ right violation among urban, semi-urban and rural schools, with the non-urban schools as the worst hit. Legal education of principals, teachers and students was consequently recommended alongside the inclusion of education law in teacher education curriculum.

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mailto:[email protected]


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Introduction The school has the social and constitutional responsibilities of educating its citizenry and protecting its clientele, the learners from the abuse of their rights and privileges. Students’ personnel administration constitutes various administrative activities and services carried out by the school to enhance the wholesome development of the learners. The importance of adequate educational personnel services cannot be over-emphasized as our school- going youths are currently threatened and challenged by monsters of militancy, cultism, drug addiction and general restiveness. This unfortunate scenario has grave consequences for teaching and learning environment which is expected to guarantee a conducive and friendly school climate. A conducive school climate ensures among other things the protection and promotion of human rights of persons within the school organization. The 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999, CFRN) is the basic organic law which has provided a plethora of rights to Nigerian citizens, including secondary school students. Umezurike, cited in Arop (2009) defined human rights as freedoms and entitlements granted to man by reason of his being human, which also constitute the inherent and inalienable rights that all men without discrimination or deprivation are entitled to, in protection of their human dignity. The Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Youth Development (2001:5) set forth the basic principles of the children’s right to include:

every child is free to belong to any association or assembly according to the law, no child should suffer any discrimination irrespective of ethnic origin, birth, colour, sex, language, religion, political and social beliefs, status or ability.

This means the rights of Nigerian children are protected by law just as those of adults. The Supreme Court of America (Morphet, Johns & Reller, 1974) declared with respect of students’ rights:

In our system, state operated schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school are “persons” under our constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the state must respect, just as they themselves must respect their obligations to the state (p.50)

That is, the reciprocity of respect for human rights by the state and its individuals is not peculiar to Nigeria. These rights are enunciated in Chapter four of the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s (1999) Constitution (section 33 to 43) to include right to life, right to dignity of human person, right to personal liberty, right to fair hearing, right to private and family life, right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, right to freedom of expression and the press, right to peaceful assembly and association, right to freedom of movement, right to freedom from discrimination, and the right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria.


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Human rights struggle and agitation is a global concern which even predates the world wars. The Magna Carta (1215), the great English Charter was the most famous of all such historical documents in Britain. It was the Charter of great liberties granted by King John in 1215 which aimed at redressing and stemming the human rights abuse and exploitations of citizens by the feudal lords. In this formal constitutional machinery for checking the King’s excesses. The king promised to refrain from imposing feudal tax except with the consent of the people’ representatives in the common council. The globalization of human rights owes its foundations to this great English Charter. Another theory lurking in the background of this study is the Getzel’s and Guba’s model of conflict theory. In their application of the Parson’s social system paradigm, they conceptualized an organization as a social system where task achievement is based on the participatory effort of every member of the organization. According to Getzel and Guba, the social system has the normative (nomothetic) and personality (idiographic) dimensions (Edem, 2003). These independent, yet interactive dimensions hold the view that a social system is defined by institutions, each specifying roles and each role having role expectations attached. This is the nomothetic dimension. The idiographic dimension on the other hand, consists of the individuals, their personalities and need dispositions. Behavior in a social system is by the theory believed to be a function of role expectation and individual personality. Conflicts do erupt when an employee’s behavior fails to be in consonance with institutional roles expected of him. Applied to this study, a super ordinate may avoid human rights violation in a school if he acts within prescribed rules and regulations. In the past, school-based problems were viewed as domestic and were therefore usually settled out of the court. Today, the situation is changing owing to the growing complexity of educational management, increasing politicization of education and the citizens’ greater awareness of their constitutional, legal and fundamental human rights. Consequently, school administrators are now being caught up and confronted with the legal implications of their job. Furthermore, the ‘in loco parentis’ (in place of the parents) status of school administrators and teachers endows them with the statutory responsibilities making them answerable to the parents of the students, to their employers and to the society, especially where their negligent conduct results to student injury, disability or death. Sample principal/teacher-student conflicts that were referred to Nigerian courts include those involving Akinjide versus Ademola; Boniface Njoku versus Idika Nwankwo and the state versus principal. In particular, the repulsive case of Miss Grace Okon Akpan, a 12 year old form one student of Duke Town Secondary School, Calabar, who was flogged by her teacher to a state of unconsciousness and ultimate death (Peretomode, 1992 p.235; Arop, 2009) deserves very special mention. It also common to find threats to human life in school premises as a result of dirty and bushy environment infested with reptiles, dilapidated buildings and overcrowded classrooms which constitute high risk and health hazards. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study was to verify whether school location significantly influences the degree of human rights violation in student personnel administration in Cross River State.


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Research Question Are there significant differences in human rights violation in student personnel administration among urban, semi-urban and rural schools? Methodology Research Design The research design used in the study was the ex-post facto design. It is a research plan in which causal influences are based on retrospective reasoning from effects to causes. The ex-post facto research design examines facts, principles, knowledge and phenomena where the effects of independent variables on the dependent variable had already occurred and are therefore not manipulable. Research Area The study was situated in Cross River State, one of the 36 States in Nigeria, with Calabar as headquarters. The state comprises three (3) senatorial districts (Cross River South, Central and North), eighteen (18) Local Government Areas and a human population of 2.3 million. Cross River State occupies a landmass of about 23,074,425 Square Kilometers. It is bounded in the north by Benue State, in the South by the Atlantic Ocean, in the East by the Republic of Cameroon and in the West by Akwa Ibom, Abia and Ebonyi States. The State lies between Latitudes 4.270 and 5.320 North of the Equator and Longitudes 7.500 and 2.200 east of the Greenwich Meridian. Cross River State evolved from the former South Eastern State in May 1976 and was re-delineated in 1987 when Akwa Ibom State was excised from it. The state is predominantly agrarian as its citizens are mostly subsistent farmers, with only a small proportion of inhabitants engaged in commerce and industry. There are three educational zones in Cross River State, namely Calabar, Ikom and Ogoja representing the Southern, Central and Northern Senatorial Zones respectively. The state is a tourist attraction zone of international repute, with tourist sites like the Calabar Export Processing Zone, the Tinapa, Obudu Cattle Ranch, the Marina Resort in Calabar and the Agbokim and Kwa waterfalls. Population of the Study The population of the study is made up of all the 95,000 students in the 232 public secondary schools in Cross River State.


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Sampling and the Sample The multi-stage sampling technique (involving the stratified, proportionate and simple random sampling) was used to select 1000 students from 50 schools out of the 95,000 students and 232 public secondary schools. This represents 22 percent of the school population and 1 .05 percent of the student population. However, the selection of sampled students was based on SS Ill class, for maturity. The stratification was based on locality within the three educational zones. Using proportionate sampling, Ikom educational zone having 86 secondary schools (37%) of the population contributed by simple random sampling, 20 schools to the sample, representing 22%. For Calabar and Ogoja zones having 73 schools each representing 31% of the school populations, 15 schools were selected by simple random sampling. Finally, the simple random sampling was used to select 20 senior secondary Ill students from each of the sampled schools. The summary of school and student population and sample are shown in Table 1. Table 1 Summary of School and student Population/Sample by locality

Serial No.

Zone No of Schools sampled

Rural Student Sample

Semi-urban student sample

Urban student sample

Total student sample

1. Calabar 73 15 40 55 300

2. Ikom 86 20 88 123 400

3. Ogoja 73 15 82 72 300

Total 232 50 210 250 1000

Source: Planning, Research and Statistics Division of CRS Secondary Education Board, Calabar, 2009. Instrumentation A researcher-designed instrument measuring the extent of student’s human rights violation in the secondary schools was prepared, called “students’ Legal Rights Protection Questionnaire” (SLRPQ). The instrument was a 38 item Likert type questionnaire of 5-point scale requiring student respondents to check the frequency of occurrence of the specific items, with response options ranging from “never”, “hardly”, “sometimes”, “often” to “always”. SLRPQ comprised two sections. The first section required the respondent’s personal data, including name of school, gender of student, and place of residence (urban, rural, semi-urban). Section II of the instrument contained items on a variety of human rights: right to dignity of human person, right to fair hearing, right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, right to freedom of expression and the press right to peaceful assembly and association, and right to freedom from discrimination.


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Typical items in the questionnaire were: Principal and teachers treat students with dignity and respect, students are forced to perform compulsory labor, students could appeal against the decision of school disciplinary committee, students are punished without due explanation of offence committed, students are free to practice religions of their choice, students’ views are considered in decisions affecting them, students could argue or discuss with teachers, students are allowed to make inputs in decisions affecting them, female students relate freely with male students, student groups are encouraged to hold meetings in the school compound, male and female students are treated equally, and examination grades are awarded on merit. Validity and Reliability of the Instrument Face validation procedure was adopted for SLRPQ. This is the extent to which expert judgment certifies the instrument adequate for measuring the trait or construct. SLRPQ was given to two professors of that University of Calabar Nigeria to vet and validate given the problem of the study and the hypothesis formulated. One of the assessors was a professor of Educational Measurement and the other, an expert in Educational Administration. Their independent views and corrections helped to produce the final form of the instrument. For reliability, the degree of stability of the items in the instrument was verified using the test-retest approach. Coefficients of reliability of the SLRPQ administered twice at two weeks interval for the variety of human rights ranged between 0.90 and 0.79. These values were considered high enough to guarantee confidence in the use of the questionnaire. Data Collection Procedure The researchers administered the questionnaire directly to the respondents in the fifty sampled schools. This was facilitated by the letter of permission obtained from the Director of School in Cross River State Ministry of Education, addressed to principals of the sampled schools. Twenty two questionnaires were weeded, discarding the ones with missing information. Thus out of the 1100 retrieved only 1000 were used. That is, about 91 percent of the instruments were found useful. Procedure of Data Analysis The data collected was coded and analyzed using the Statistical Package for. Social Sciences (SPSS). The statistical tools used were the one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).


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Results Null Hypothesis There are no significant differences in human rights violations (in student personnel administration) among urban, semi-urban and rural schools. To test this hypothesis, each of the sub-variables of students’ rights was compared with the three dimensions of locality using the one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) as shown in Tables 2,3 and 4. Table 2 Descriptive Statistics of the six components of human rights violation are expressed by students based on locality

Students’ rights Locality n SD

Dignity of human person Urban Semi Urban Rural Total

540 250 210 1000

26.26 25.96 24.95 25.91

2.55 2.60 2.03 2.51

Fair hearing Urban Semi Urban Rural Total

540 250 210 1000

20.09 18.70 20.50 19.83

2.82 3.12 3.19 3.01

Freedom of thought/religion Urban Semi Urban Rural Total

540 250 210 1000

20.21 19.32 20.90 20.14

2.72 2.94 2.98 2.88

Freedom of expression/Press Urban Semi Urban Rural Total

540 250 210 1000

20.28 19.80 21.19 20.35

2.71 2.81 3.06 2.85

Peaceful Assembly/association Urban Semi Urban Rural Total

540 250 210 1000

20.31 19.88 20.17 20.38

2.73 3.02 2.96 2.89

Freedom from discrimination Urban Semi Urban Rural

540 250 210

18.12 18.66 18.24

1.98 1.62 1.87

Total 1000 18.28 1.88


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Table 3 One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) of differential level of students’ Human Rights violations on the basis of locality (N=1000)

Student’s right Sources of variation SS df MS F Sig. of F

Dignity of human person

Between group Within group Total

259.072 6032.828 6291.900

2 997 999

129.536 6.051

21.408* .000

Fair hearing Between group Within group Total

450.730 8980.370 9431.100

2 997 999

225.368 9.007

25.020* .000

Freedom of thought/religion


293.771 80.13004 8306.775

2 997 999

146.885 8.037

18.276* .000

Freedom of expression/press


226.786 7890.714 8117.500

2 997 999

113.393 7.914

14.327* .000

Peaceful assembly/association


195.450 8120.150 8315.600

2 997 999

97.725 8.145

11.999* .000

Freedom from Discrimination


50.229 3491.371 354.600

2 997 999

25.114 3.502

7.172* .000

*Significant at .05 level, critical F=3.00 df=2,997 Table 3 shows that the calculated F-values of 21.401 for dignity of human person, 25.020 for right of fair hearing, 18.276 for freedom of thought/religion, 14.327 for freedom of


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expressions/press, 11.999 for peaceful assembly/association, and 7.172 for freedom from discrimination are each higher that the critical F-ratio of 3.00 required for significance at .05 level with 2 and 997 degrees of freedom. The null hypothesis is therefore rejected. This implies that locality significantly influences level of human rights violations among urban, semi- urban and rural schools. The pattern of influence was further explored using Fisher’s Least Significant Difference (LSD) multiple comparison analysis as shown in Table 4. Table 4 Fisher’s Least Significance Difference (LSD) Multiple Comparison analysis of differences in Students’ rights violation on the basis of locality

Students’ human rights Locality I

Locality j

Mean difference i-j

Std error Sig

Dignity of human person Urban Rural

Rural Semi Semi

1.3069* .2993 -1.0076

.2000 1.881 .2302

.000

.112 .000

Fair hearing Urban Rural

Rural Semi Semi

-1.4074 1.8000* -1.8000*

.2240

.2295 .2809

.095

.000 .000

Freedom of Thought/Religion Urban Rural

Rural Semi Semi

-.6918* .8930* 1.3905

.2287

.2152 .2633

.000

.027 .000

Peaceful assembly/Association Urban

Rural Semi

-.8611* .4256

.2320

.2183

.000

.052

1.2867*

Rural

Semi .2671 .000

Freedom from discrimination Urban Rural

Rural Semi Semi

-.1177 -.5396* -.3219*

.1521

.1431 .1751

.439

.000 .016

*Significant at .05 level of significance From the Table 4, significant differences in the violation of students’ right to dignity of human persons exists only between urban and rural schools, none between urban and semi-urban, and


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none between rural and semi-urban schools. Significant differences in violation of the right to fair hearing exist only between urban and semi-urban as well as between rural and semi-urban schools. Wide spread differences in violation of the right to fair hearing exist only between urban and semi-urban as well as between rural and semi-urban schools. Wide spread differences in human rights violation across levels of locality were established for both freedom of thought/religion and freedom of expression/press. For the right to peaceful assembly/association, significant violation differences exist between urban and rural schools as well as between rural and semi-rural schools. Finally, significant violation differences in the right of freedom from discrimination were found to exist between urban and semi-urban as well as between rural and semi-urban schools. Discussion of Findings The major finding of this study is that there are significant differences in human rights violation among urban, semi-urban and rural secondary schools in Cross River State, Nigeria. This is expected, because criminal activities tend to thrive in ‘dark’ areas, where culprit identification may be difficult. Similarly, it is commonly observed that people living in neighbourhood of close proximity to law enforcement agents and government reserved areas (GRA’s) tend to enjoy relatively higher security as such places are characterized by low crime wave. Rural areas in Nigeria lack both physical facilities and social security, with little or no government presence. Consequently, anti-social activists, criminals and hoodlums who find the urban areas suitable for habitation and for “business” run to the slums for hiding. The situation is further worsened by poor network of roads and the inaccessibility. Infect, but for the availability of mobile phones, the rural areas would have been completely cut off from the cities. Specifically, this study found that apart from the right to dignity of human person, all the other rights investigated in this work are more violated in the non-urban than the urban schools. The dignity of human person is abused for instance when school administration disregard students and treat them disdainfully. During students’ registration exercise which precedes teaching activities in schools, many schools subterfuge the expected induction programme that would have guaranteed proper socialization of the fresh students into the culture of the school, and further ensure integration of the old and new students. The consequence is usually defective student socialization leading to alienation from school culture and student maladjustment. This is in consonance with Kimbrough and Nunnery’s (1983) views that the tasks of servicing basic students’ activities like orientation must not be overlooked because this plays a critical role in school administrative success. This view is an anti-thesis to the popular traditional perception that the school environment is an arena of unbounded personal immunity against the law. Mbipom (2000) noted that most of our Nigerian schools are community or neighbor hood schools with little or no boarding facilities. Thus most students are non-residential students and are usually placed in schools within that locality. This is in dignifying as their right to choose is greatly circumscribed. Abuse of students’ rights may be a result of teacher and principals’ ignorance of the fundamental human right law and other related legislation to which they are amenable. ‘Ex post facto’ regulation, retrogressive, oppressive and unreasonable rules and


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regulations all constitute violations of students’ right to fair hearing (Peretomode, 1992; Asesina & Ogunsaju, 1984). This is dangerous, as ignorance is no excuse before the law. In synopsis, flagrant abuse of student’s human rights abounds in the sample studied irrespective of locality. Legal education is a very novel area in Nigerian school system and the subject matter is virtually absent in the teacher education programme. This study therefore more than anything else, points to the need for inclusion of educational law in the pre-service teacher education curriculum. The serving teacher needs reeducation through in-service capacity building programmes. Conclusion School operatives, tend to act like people ignorant of the human rights provided for in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Poor knowledge and awareness of one’s rights and obligations to others grossly undermine one’s ability and poise for promotion and protection of such human rights. Since school law is a new development in the curriculum for teacher and principals did not study this subject in their undergraduate programmes. These facts may likely have been responsible for the large-scale abuse of human rights observed in schools. Finally, any policy that allows majority of its citizens to remain uneducated may find itself afflicted with human rights abuses. Recommendations Based on the findings, it is hereby recommended that:

1. Teacher capacity building programmes should be given a greater priority. Teacher retraining on education law is an urgent imperative. This will help teachers to guard against child-abuse and infringement on students’ rights.

2. School principals should be trained through conferences, seminars and workshops on the vital subject matter of legal education for better school supervision and avoidance of contravention of law.

3. On-going pre-service teacher preparation programmes should include a course in human rights or legal education to equip the trainees and prospective teachers with skills for wholesome personnel management.

4. School external supervisors should include a legal education expert to monitor human right problems in schools and offer professional assistance to school personnel.

5. Resource persons should organize talks on student’s rights to sensitize and inform learners on the scope and exercise of their fundamental human rights in the light of the Nigerian Constitution and the immediate cultural environment.

6. Student Opinion box should be made a mandatory requirement in all schools as a facility to welcome student opinions and to ventilate oppression by school officials. School supervisors should periodically see its content for necessary action.


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References Adesina, S. & Ogunsaju, S. (1984). Secondary Education in Nigeria. Ille-Ife: University of Ife Press Ltd. Arop, F. O. (2009). An evaluation of human rights violations in student personnel administration in Secondary Schools in Cross River State, Nigeria. An unpublished Ph. D Dissertation, University of Calabar, Calabar. Edem, D. A (2003). Introduction to Educational Administration in Nigeria. Ibadan: Spectrum books. Federal Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Youth Development (2001). Child’s rights Act (simplified version). Abuja: Marvellous Mike Ventures. Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999). Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Abuja: Federal Government Press. Kimbrough, R. B. & Nunnery M.Y (1983). Educational Administration. An Introduction. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.Inc. Mbipom, G. (2000). Educational Administration and Planning. Calabar: University of Calabar Press. Morphet, E. L., Johns, R. L. & Reller, T. L. (1974). Educational Organization and administration concepts, practices and issues. New York: Prentice Hall Inc. Eaglewoor Cliffs. Peretomode, V. F. (1992). Education Law: Principles, cases and materials on schools. Owerri: International University Press Limited.

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