Drugs abuse, civic behaviour and students' academic performance: perspectives of Senior Secondary Schools in Zaria education zone, Kaduna state, Nigeria

Background: As a consequence of rapid social change and the resultant breakdown of traditional social structures, illegal use of drugs have spread across the globe without exception of Nigeria.                                                        Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive design was used. Five Senior Secondary Schools were selected. Using Research advisor (2006) Sampling table, 365 respondents were sampled using stratified random sampling technique out of 3812 students. Standardized questionnaire structured by Afuwai in 2016 was adapted. Data from the pilot study was analyzed using Cronbach’s alpha an reliability indexes of 804 and .813 were obtained. This is to determine the internal consistency of the responses to the items. Statistics were presented in mean and standard deviation and a three point-scale was used. Hypothesis were tested using independent sample t-test at .05 level of significance. Results: The study revealed that students under the influence of drugs can: fight a teacher, sneak out of school and break school regulations, take part in fight where a group of their friends were against another group, damages school properties on purpose, got into problem with the police for something they did. The study showed that students who abuse drugs are often below average student in their respective classes. To buttress this, the null hypothesis which states that there is no significant influence of drug abuse on the academic performance of senior secondary schools student was rejected (p-value of 0.03 is less than 0.05 level of significance).                          Conclusion: Drugs abuse has an influence on both students’ civic behavior and academic performances.