Assessing students' awareness of environmental hazards and risks in public tertiary educational institutions in Oyo State, Nigeria

Environmental hazards occur in any sphere of human environment and at any locations where human activities take place. One of these locations is the educational campus environment where students reside and carry out their daily academic activities. A cursory observation of campus environments in Nigeria showed evidences of environmental hazards with their associated risks while there has been a dearth of studies on the subject. This paper therefore assessed students’ awareness of environmental hazards and risks in public tertiary educational institutions in Oyo State. Questionnaire were administered on 367 students that were selected using probability sampling techniques. Descriptive analysis was used in computing mean Hazard Awareness Indexes (RSI) and mean Risk Severity Indexes (HAI) for the institutions. Findings revealed that students were aware of environmental hazards and the severity of their associated risks in the institutions both in hostels and academic areas. However, the level of awareness was higher in some institutions than the other. It was recommended that the school authorities should create enlightenment programmes and implement policies that could enhance students’ awareness of environmental hazards and risks in the institutions.