Stakeholders’ Opinions on the Applicability of Armed School Policy as Deterrence for Activities of Unconventional Militias in Nigerian North Central Schools (Published)
The study finds out opinions of parents, school staffs and students, who are here referred as stakeholders, on the applicability of armed school policy as deterrence for activities of unconventional militias such as Boko Harram, in Nigerian north central schools. From the population of the stakeholders, a total sample of 1232 respondents were sampled using cluster sampling technique, for parents and students and incidental sampling technique for school staffs. The populations were represented as following: 442(35.87%) of parents; 400 (32.46%) of school staff and 390 (31.65%) of students. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire titled Armed School Policy Questionnaire (ASPQ). ASPQ was validated and has reliability co-efficient of 0.72. Data were analyzed using percentages and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Findings revealed that 91.1% of parents, 77.7% of school staff and 100% of students wanted the schools in North-Central Nigeria to be guided by armed security personnel. Among these, 76.5% wanted the armed personnel to be permanently present in the schools; 18.6% and 4.1% wanted them occasionally and only on invitation, respectively. Besides, the stakeholders believed that application of armed school policy in the zone would provide security and deter crimes. Only 9.7% of parents and 26% of school staff believed presence of armed personnel would amount to security threat. It was therefore concluded that application of armed school policy would secure life and property in schools and would be appreciated by education stakeholders in North-Central Nigeria.
Keywords: Militia, Pattern, Personnel, armed personnel, unconventional