SCHOOL SAFETY MANAGEMENT FOR EFFECTIVE SERVICE DELIVERY IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN DELTA STATE

Abstract

The paper investigated school safety management for effective service delivery in public secondary schools in 
Delta State. Three research questions were answered and three hypotheses tested in the study. Descriptive 
survey design was adopted in the study while population of the study comprised all the 466 public senior
secondary school principals in Delta State out of which 444 available principals (238 males and 206 
females) were purposively sampled. School Safety Management for Effective Service Delivery Questionnaire 
(SSMESDQ) was the instrument used for data gathering. The questionnaire was face and content validated 
by two Measurement and Evaluation experts at the University of Port Harcourt with a reliability index of 
0.81 using Cronbach alpha statistics. There were 444 copies of the questionnaire administered and 412 
copies retrieved which was a return rate of 92.8%. Mean, standard deviation and rank order statistics were 
used to answer the research questions while z-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of 
significance. Findings of the study indicated that loss of lives and property as well as injuries were some of 
the effects of unsafe school. The barriers to adequate safety in the schools that were identified were lack of 
safety awareness, absence of safety staff among others. Strategies for improved safety such as engagement of 
safety experts were also identified. It was recommended that principals should be trained on how to handle 
internal safety issues in the school for better service delivery.