Management of girl-child education for eradicating the prevalence of paedophilia among pupils in primary schools in Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract

Paedophilia has become a global phenomenon, and it negatively impacts on girl-child education. However, empirical
evidence on how school administrators manage girl-child education in order to safeguard them from paedophilic
behaviours and curtail dropout rates remains limited. This study therefore, attempts to address this research gap by
investigating management of girl-child education for eradicating the prevalence of paedophilia among pupils in
primary schools in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was adopted. The population comprised all
7,765 head teachers and teachers in the 927 public primary schools in Ekiti State. A sample of 777 respondents (93
head teachers and 684 teachers), representing 10% of the population was drawn using both simple random sampling
and proportionate stratified random sampling techniques. The instrument that was used for data collection was a selfdeveloped 18-item questionnaire and it was duly validated by five experts. The internal consistency of the instrument
was determined using Cronbach’s Alpha. Reliability coefficients of 0.71 and 0.84 were obtained respectively for the
various sections of the instrument. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while ztest was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed, among others,
that girl-child education is managed in various ways that can protect the female pupils from paedophiles, gender-based violence, vulnerability to societal threats, attacks, among others in primary schools in Ekiti State. It was therefore concluded that managing the girl-child education effectively is critical to attaining the ongoing Sustainable
Development Goal 4 – completion of a full course of primary schooling. Based on the findings, it was recommended, among others, that Ekiti State Ministry of Education should ensure sustained management of the girl-child education by constantly receiving feedback from school inspectors on monitoring and evaluation mechanisms so as to eradicate
the rate of gender-based violence among pupils.