Revitalizing Counselling in Nigerian Public Higher Education: Strategies for Controlling Student Drug Addiction

Abstract

This paper is on revitalizing counseling departments in public higher educational institutions: Strategies for controlling drug addiction among students in public higher educational institutions in Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was used in this study. University of Agriculture and environmental and sciences Umuagwo Imo State was chosen for this study among other universities in Nigeria. One research question and one hypothesis guided this study. Population of this study is 7,000 which comprised 4,500 female and 2,500 male students in university of Agriculture and environmental sciences Umuagwo Imo state. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 40 male students in crop science and agricultural extension services departments. On the other hand, 50 female students were selected in agricultural economics and urban regional planning departments, which gave total sample size of 90 as sample size. Researcher developed questionnaire titled “Revitalizing counseling departments in public higher educational institutions: Strategies for controlling drug addiction among students in public higher educational institutions in Nigeria” was used, with four rating scale of strongly agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree. The instrument was validated by two specialists in Business Education, Madonna University Nigeria, Okija Campus, Anambra State. Cronbach alpha statistics were used to determine the reliability coefficient of 0.78 and 0.97, which shows that the instrument was reliable for use   in this study. The instrument was administered to the respondents with the help of two research assistants who were briefed before distributing the questionnaire. A total of 90 questionnaires were administered and returned after respondents have given their individual opinions on them. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation.  Chi Square -test of independent was used to test the hypothesis. Findings from this study revealed that students affected by drug addiction were troublesome, mixed classes and do not cope in their studies in public universities Nigeria. Other effects of drug addiction among students include creating public nuisance, fighting in the classroom, anger, lack of concentration, sudden sleep off, forgetfulness, among others. It was recommended from this study that government through public universities vice chancellors, should equip counseling department with counseling logistics, This would enable counseling departments in public universities to control drug addiction among students in public universities in Nigeria.