CHIATECH JOURNAL · Registered Version of Record

Security Challenges and Principals' Management Strategies in North-Central Nigerian Secondary Schools

1. Wilfred Ogbu
   Department of Educational Management, Faculty of Education, University of Abuja, Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Security threats can disrupt attendance, teaching, learning and school administration, while principals are expected to coordinate preventive, protective, detective and response functions within constrained local environments. Objective: This study examined prevalent security challenges in public senior secondary schools in three North-Central Nigerian states and assessed the effectiveness of principals' security-management strategies. Methods: The source manuscript reports a descriptive correlational survey of 45 schools drawn from a population of 894 public senior secondary schools in Benue, Kogi and Nasarawa. Respondents comprised 45 principals, 375 teachers and 384 students. Three four-point questionnaires were used, with reported reliability coefficients of 0.73–0.79. Descriptive statistics and ANOVA were reported at the 0.05 level. Results: The overall security-challenge mean was 2.80 (SD=0.86). Violence (M=3.06), kidnapping/abduction (M=3.04) and communal clashes (M=2.93) were the highest-rated threats. State-level challenge means were Nasarawa 2.93, Kogi 2.65 and Benue 2.57, with a reported significant difference (F=3.689, p=.033). Principals were rated effective in safety programmes (M=2.71), asset protection (M=2.67) and detective strategies (M=2.60), but ineffective in threat prevention (M=2.43) and emergency response (M=2.20). State differences were reported only for asset-protection strategy (F=3.293, p=.038). Conclusion: The evidence indicates a high-threat environment combined with a management gap in prevention and emergency response. The publication update preserves the source statistics without re-estimation and situates the findings within Nigeria's current safe-schools policy framework.

Keywords: school security; principals; security management; kidnapping; emergency response; secondary schools; North-Central Nigeria; educational administration

Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published by CHIA TECH SOLUTIONS AND RESOURCES LIMITED. ISSN assignment remains pending.