Management of moral education and students discipline in public secondary schools in Imo State

Abstract

This study on the Management of moral education and students discipline in public secondary schools in Imo State stemmed from the researchers concerns on the moral decadence among secondary school students in Imo State which impacts negatively on their academics. The study was guided by four research questions. Researcher made rating scale of 36 items with 4-point response options for data collection was used for the study. Descriptive survey research design was employed. The population of the study is 284 principals, 6144 teachers and 157,306 students in the 284 public
secondary schools of six education zones of Imo state. A sample size of 240 respondents comprising 30 principals, 90 teachers and 120 students was drawn from
the 6 local Government Areas in the zone using clustered random sampling techniques. Data were presented in frequency tables, and analyzed with mean scores. Mean score of 2.50 was used as a decision point to answer the research questions.
Findings revealed that immoral behavior has impact on the students of Imo State
Public secondary school, moral education is relevant to the character building of
students in the school system, there are employable strategies by school to work on
the morality of students’ in Imo State public Secondary Schools and there are factors
that attribute to the challenges of moral education in Imo State. Based on the findings,
it was recommended that the Secondary Education Management Board (SEMB)
should make provision for adequate staff and instructional materials for moral
education, call for in-service training courses to train teachers’ management of
students’ discipline as well, moral instruction should be in the school curriculum and
be taken as a subject of its own.