Environmental Hazards and Hostel Accommodation Problems: Challenges for University Education in Nigeria

One of the major issues in managing tertiary education for quality and sustainability in the third world nations is the issue of the increasing negative influences of climate change and the associated environmental degradation in the institutions. Student learning can be enhanced and made more effective when learning environment is made adequate and appropriate. Students’ hostel management is very vital in attaining quality tertiary education for sustainable development. This study investigated environmental hazards and hostel accommodation problems—Challenges for university education in Nigeria. A research question and a hypothesis guided the study. A 13-item questionnaire built on 4-point scale and validated by two experts with a reliability index of 0.78 was used to elicit responses from 300 male and female hall wardens from six federal universities in south-east geo-political zone of Nigeria. Data collected were decoded. Mean was used for the analysis of the research question while the hypothesis was tested with Z-test statistic tool at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that there were inadequate students’ accommodation caused by inadequate number of hostels, inadequate environmental management, and over crowdedness due to increased student enrollment. It was also found that hostel environmental hazards affect students socially and academically to a great extent. Based on these findings, it was recommended that more hostels should be built in these institutions; the interior and the exterior hostile environments should be adequately facilitated and managed. Hall wardens were required to regular update their hostel environmental hazards skills. Government and other philanthropists should partner and adequately empower the institutions for students’ hostels transformation in Nigeria.