Assessment of senior secondary school students enrolment and attitude to formal education in banditry-ravaged areas in katisna state

Formal education, a structured and systematic learning process, has been threatened by banditry activities in Katsina State. The study assessed senior secondary school students’ enrolment and attitude to formal education in banditry-ravaged areas in Katisna State. The researchers adopted survey research design for the study. The target population was made up of senior secondary school students’ in in banditry-ravaged areas in Katisna State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling techniques were utilized for the study. Thus, a total of nine hundred and ninety-one (991) senior secondary school students in banditry-ravaged areas in Katsina State participated in the study. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire titled ‘Students’ Attitude towards Formal Education in Banditry Ravaged Areas Questionnaire (SATFEBRAQ) with test-retest reliability coefficients 0.85. In addition, a Proforma was used to collect five (5) years senior secondary students enrolment in banditry ravaged areas from the principal of the selected schools for the study. Frequency, percentage, standard deviation, mean and rank-order were used to answer research questions while t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the formulated hypotheses. Results show the alarmingly low enrolment rates, which disproportionately affect both male and female students, all the 15 items on the Students' Attitude towards Formal Education in Banditry Ravaged Areas Questionnaire have a significant negative impact on students' attitudes towards formal education in these areas. Moreover,, no significant difference in the attitude of senior secondary school students towards formal education in banditry-ravaged areas of Katsina State with respect to gender 229 (t = 0.229, df = 989, p 0.05); Class (F1, 989 = 0.753, p 0.05) and age (F1, 988 = 0.420, p 0.05).The researchers concluded that banditry activities have negatively impacted senior secondary school students' enrollment rates and attitudes towards formal education in banditry-ravaged areas of Katsina State. The researchers recommend that government should take decisive action to eliminate banditry thereby ensuring a safe and secure environment enables students to attend school without fear.