ABSTRACT
The study investigated the prevalence of bullying among secondary students in public single sex education schools in Egor local government area of Benin City, Edo state, Nigeria. Five research questions and one hypothesis guided the study.
The study adopted a survey design. The population of the study was 447 JSS2 learners from two public single sex education schools, one male school and one female school in Egor local government area. The sample size is 148 (comprising of 74 males and 74 females) selected through simple random sampling technique. The instrument for data collection was a 4-point Likert scale questionnaire of Strongly agree (SA), Agree(A), Disagree (D) and Strongly disagree (SD) with demographic factors such as, sex, age and form of disability. The instrument was validated by three experts and there after subject to Cronbach Alpha Reliability Coefficients which yielded 563, .851 and .650 for subscale 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The instrument was administered by the researcher independently. Data collected were analyzed using percentages, mean to answer research questions while the independent sample t-test was used to test formulated hypothesis at a 0.05 level of significance.
The findings from the study reveals that, the prevalence of bullying among secondary students in public single sex education schools in Egor local government area of Edo state is 65.62.%. It also reveals that there is no inclusion of persons with special needs in the secondary public single sex education schools in the target population. It reveals 100% normal students and 0% persons with special needs which does not support the sustainable development goal 4 of inclusive education of the united nations 2016 mission statement targeted to be achieved by 2030. The findings also show that, the effects of bullying include low self-esteem, lack of focus on academics and loneliness. It further reveals that, parental involvement in children academics, teachers’ positive support and setting of clear rules against bullying rank first, second and third respectively as strategies to curbing bulling in single sex education public schools in Egor Local Government in Edo State. It was therefore recommended among others that bullying should be tacked through setting of clear rules against bulling, parental involvement in learners’ academics and teacher positive support to learners.
