Impacts of Teaching of Health Education on the Control of Environmental Hazard in Secondary Schools in Offa Kwara State

Abstract

Today’s children are the leaders of tomorrow, they deserve to inherit a safer, fairer and healthier environment, no task is more important than safe guiding their environment.  Health education knowledge are said to be one of the most efficient strategies that a nation needs to prevent environmental hazard like pollution, diseases and accidents in schools. This study investigated the impact of teaching of health education in the reduction of pollution, diseases and accidents in secondary schools in Offa, Kwara State. A descriptive research of survey type was used. The population were all secondary schools’ teachers in Offa, Kwara State. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 200 respondents that were used for the study.  Researchers’ designed questionnaire which was validated and tested for reliability   using Pearson product moment correlation with a coefficient of 0.75r. Inferential statistics of Chi-Square was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 alpha   level of significance.

The findings of the study revealed that:Teaching of health education reduces pollution, the spread of diseases and accidents in secondary schools in Offa. (calc. X²  value =181.46 > crit value 21.03), (calc X² value  =151 03> crit value 21.03), (calc X²= 121.82  > crit value  21.03)

The study concluded that the teaching of health education reduces pollution, the spread of diseases and accidents in secondary schools in Offa, Kwara State. It is therefore recommended that students and teachers should be given adequate knowledge of health education in order to create a sustainable quality of live to control pollution, the spread of diseases and to prevent accidents within the school environments. Health education knowledge should also be given to control physical, chemical and biological processes which may directly and indirectly affect the wellbeing of students and teachers in schools.

 Keywords:   Health, Education, School, Pollution, Diseases.