TRENDS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA AND IMPLICATIONS FOR BASIC EDUCATION MANDATE

Abstract

This study examined the trends of sexual harassment in colleges of education in southwest Nigeria and its implications on basic education mandate. It specifically sought to find out whether its level of occurrence is so low that makes it hardly pronounced publicly as in the case of academic staff in universities. Two Federal Colleges of Education one each chosen from two states (Lagos and Ogun) out of the six states in Southwest geo-political zone were used for the study while simple random and stratified sampling techniques were used to select eighty (80)300 level female students in Primary Education Department and seventy(70)300 level female students in Department of English, making a total of one hundred and fifty (150) respondents. Also, twenty five (25) male academic staff and twenty five (25) male non-academic staff were randomly selected during staff forum from each of the two selected colleges, to make a total of one hundred (100) male staff respondents. Data were collected using four instruments; structured Female Sexual Harassment Questionnaire (FSHQ), Male Academic Staff Sexual Harassment Questionnaire (MASSHQ), Male NonAcademic Staff Sexual Harassment Questionnaire (MNASSHQ) and Key Informant Interview (KII)as the main instruments which were standardized and found to have Cronbach Apha reliability levels of 0.69, 0.74, 0.68 and 0.71 0.74 and 0.69 respectively. The results of the study showed that sexual harassment apart from creating hindrance to student-teachers' academic pursuit, is prevalent among male academic and non-academic staff in colleges of education. It also revealed through KII that more non-academic staff married former female students of the college than academic staff. It was then recommended that a proper legal definition of what constitutes sexual harassment in institutions of higher learning is needed by government and other stakeholders involved in educational policy making. It was also recommended that the searchlight of sexual harassment should be beamed and focused on every institution of learning at all levels instead of focusing on university settings alone.