Extent of Safety Compliance in Secondary School Science Laboratories in Abakaliki Education Zone of Ebonyi State.

Abstract

The focus of this study is to investigate the extent of safety compliance, in secondary school science laboratories in Abakaliki Education Zone of Ebonyi State. Two research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. The study employed descriptive survey design. This is to enable the researcher describe the extent of safety compliance and make decisions based on empirical evidence. The researcher used a total number of seventy-two (72) public secondary schools, out of 78 public secondary schools in the zone. This is because, six secondary schools out of 78 public secondary schools in the zone do not have science laboratory at the time of this research data collection. The researcher did not sample since, the number of secondary schools in the zone was not high. A four-point scale structured questionnaire developed by the researcher was used to collect data on the safety compliance. The instrument is made up of fourteen (22) items. Mean and standard deviation were used in answering the research questions while, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The results revealed that the extent of safety compliance in secondary school science laboratories in Abakaliki Education Zone of Ebonyi State was high. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher therefore, recommended that Government of Ebonyi State and school authorities should keep up the present level of laboratory safety compliance in secondary school science laboratories in the state by collaborating with curriculum developers to review the existing curriculum and integrate the basic tenets of laboratory safety measures in the curriculum.