Abstract:
Student Personnel Services (SPS) such as counselling, first aid, health, recreational and
security are support services rendered by the school to enhance learners’ all-around
development. Reports show that SPS are inadequate in most secondary schools in
Nigeria especially Southwest, and this has resulted in poor academic performance of
students. Extant studies have largely focused on the influence of availability of funds,
leadership styles and school climate on the provision of SPS. However, school
administrators as well as teachers level of awareness and practice of Child’s Right Act
2003 (CRA) has received little or no attention. This study, therefore, investigated the
influence of School Administrator Awareness of Child’s Right Act 2003 (SAACRA),
Teacher Awareness of Child’s Right Act 2003 (TACRA), School Administrator
Practice of Child’s Right Act, 2003 (SAPCRA) and Teacher Practice of Child’s Right
Act 2003 (TPCRA) on SPS in public secondary schools in southwestern Nigeria.
Dynamic Awareness and Fiduciary theories were used as the framework while the
mixed methods design was adopted. The multi-stage sampling procedure was used.
Three states (Ogun, Osun and Oyo) were randomly selected from the six States in
southwestern Nigeria. Three Senatorial Districts – (SDs) one per State – were
randomly sampled. Thirteen out of the 25 local government areas and 137 out of the
278 schools were randomly selected from the three SDs: Ogun (3; 47), Osun (5; 42)
and Oyo (5; 48), respectively. The Proportionate to size sampling technique was used
to select 433 teachers, while 137 school administrators were enumerated. The
purposive sampling technique was used to select 968 Senior School II students.
Twenty school administrators were randomly selected and interviewed. The
instruments used were School Administrator Awareness of Child’s Right Act 2003
(r=0.73), School Administrator Practice of Child’s Right Act 2003 (r=0.84), Teacher
Awareness of Child’s Right Act 2003 (r=0.74), Teacher Practice of Child’s Right Act
2003 (r=0.86), and Student Personnel Services (r=0.94) questionnaires. Quantitative
data were analysed using descriptive statistics while qualitative data were content analysed.
The SPS – health services (𝑥̅= 2.64) and sport services (𝑥̅=2.72) were – high, while
association/club services (𝑥̅=2.50), security services (𝑥̅=2.55) and counselling
services (𝑥̅=2.58) were moderate against the threshold of 2.50. The SAPCRA
(𝑥̅=2.52) and SAACRA (𝑥̅=2.54) were moderate, while TACRA (𝑥̅=2.36) and
TPCRA (𝑥̅=2.43) were low against the threshold of 2.50. School administrators were
often sensitized about CRA through seminars organised by the All Nigeria
Confederation of Principals of Secondary Schools, hence they showed a higher level
of awareness than teachers. Inadequacy of counselling materials, poor security
measures and limited spaces for counsellors negatively impacted on the practice of
CRA by the school administrators. Another indication of poor awareness of CRA by
most of the teachers is the use of corporal punishment without the consent of school
administrators.
School administrators in southwestern Nigeria unlike teachers were better informed
about CRA and more favourably disposed to the provisions of SPS. Stakeholders
should pay more attention to the sensitisation of principals and teachers on CRA for
effective student personnel services.
