Evaluating the ‘Whys’ of Noncompliance with COVID- 19 Safety Measures in Lecture Halls/Theatres by Nigerian Undergraduates: The Perspectives of Students of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka

Following the relaxation of lockdown necessitated by the outbreak of COVID-19, schools reopened and the need to contain the spread in schools became pivotal; making authorities of schools, including Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), Awka, set up a response committee which came up with clearly spelled-out control measures for both staff and students. However, it is one thing to come up with a well-meaning policy and another and more importantly, to enforce unflinching compliance with the policy. It was the researchers’ observation that this safety policy did not enjoy unalloyed compliance and therefore, they considered it necessary to find out the whys of this noncompliance to put the school management and government at a vantage point to handle any eventual new waves of the pandemic. This study, therefore, sought to investigate the factors which militated against total compliance with COVID-19 pandemic safety measures in Nigerian schools and specifically the universities, from the perspectives of students of NAU, Awka. The present study adopted the descriptive survey design to examine the factors. The sample size was 786 (352 females and 434 males) ages16 – 20 years who were randomly selected through a multistage sampling technique. The researcher-developed questionnaire titled Students’ Responses to COVID-19 Safety Measures Questionnaire (RCSMQ) was used to obtain the data for the study during their first semester examinations. The instrument was duly validated by two experts from the departments of Educational Foundations and Education Management and Policy, NAU, Awka respectively. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach alpha and an alpha coefficient of 0.82 was obtained which was high enough and therefore deemed reliable. Three research questions guided the study. They were answered using frequency and percentages and means. Results indicated that the interaction of factors such as school, lecturers and students-related hindered compliance of staff and students to the COVID-19 safety measures guiding the university. Factors found to have impeded compliance included a lack of enough lecture halls while the available ones were not spacious enough to allow for physical distancing, students’ delusion of the non-existence of the pandemic, and lack of interest from both lecturers and students, among others. The researchers concluded that there is a lot that lay on the hands of every stakeholder in the education system to keep our Nigerian schools safe from the menace of an eventual new wave of COVID-19 virus or outbreak of other tragic and challenging health problems that may occur in future, especially those that spread faster in overcrowded settings like school settings, and therefore, recommend that the government should increase budgetary allocation that can adequately fund university education needs while the school management should judiciously manage the funds to construct enough spacious lecture halls and provide other facilities, organize necessary programs for lecturers to orient them on the management of students in health challenging situations like that of COVID-19. Programs organized to eliminate the doubts of doubting Thomases among the students against the reality of COVID-19 and other health problems and their illusion of invulnerability are also recommended.