An Examination of School Environmental Health Awareness, Attitudes, and Practices of Nigerian Secondary School Students

Abstract

Schools are fundamental to the promotion of sound behaviour practices. However, Nigerian secondary offer limited environmental health awareness for attitude practices in student learning. This study described Nigerian secondary school students’ school environmental health awareness, attitude and practices. A 34-item instrument was administered to 1000 students out of which 867 were returned, representing 86.7 % response rate. Data were analysed using simple percent, mean, t-test, and analysis of variance. The results indicated that students possessed rather moderate/average levels of school environmental health, and equally positive attitudes and practice of school environmental health. Results of T-test revealed that there was significant difference between male and female students in awareness and practice of school environmental health while, no significant difference was observed in their attitudes. Similarly, no significance difference was observed in awareness, attitudes and practice according to age, school ownership, class and school location. ANOVA results showed significant differences in awareness and attitudes of students of mixed schools and boys only schools. The results suggested the need for multi-sectorial actions to gear up effort towards preparing teachers for educating students and other stakeholders in the school system for environmental sustainability.Keywords: School environmental health, awareness, attitude, practice.