Managing School Plant Planning for Climate Change in Public Secondary Schools in Rivers State, Nigeria: A Prerequisite for the Attainment of Sustainable Educational Development

Abstract

This study examined managing school plant planning for climate change in the attainment of sustainable educational development for public secondary schools in Rivers State. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The descriptive design was adopted. The population of the study comprised all the 542 public junior and senior secondary schools in Rivers State. A sample of 304 principals representing 56% of the population served as the study respondents. This sample was selected using the stratified random sampling technique. A validated Likert-modified 4-scale 16 item instrument titled: ‘Managing School Plant Planning for Climate Change in Public Secondary Schools Questionnaire (MSPPCCPSSQ)’ was used for data collection and its reliability coefficient was established at 0.82 using the Cronbach Alpha Correlation coefficient. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the research questions while the z-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of this study revealed that discouraging deforestation while encouraging afforestation where trees acting as wind breakers are planted; communicating effectively with students by promoting students’ engagements by means of enlightening students on the importance of respecting green spaces such as school gardens, parks are some of the ways of managing school plant planning for climate change in the attainment of sustainable educational development in public secondary schools in Rivers State, Nigeria. Based on these findings, the researcher recommended that Rivers State government should endeavor to champion the course of initiating proactive ways and policies in managing school plant planning for public secondary schools aimed at curbing the negative effects of climate change in Rivers State.