Managing Education in a Recessed Economy: A Psychological Perspective on Secondary School Students in Rivers State: An Imperative Analysis
Downloads
The persistent economic recession in Nigeria continues to exert immense pressure on the education sector, particularly at the secondary school level. This paper presents a psychological perspective on managing education in a recessed economy, with a specific focus on secondary school students in Rivers State. It argues that economic hardship not only disrupts the financial operations of schools but also deeply affects the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral well-being of learners. Based on psychological theories including Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory and Theory of Emotional Resilience, it elaborates on how the economic crisis decreases students’ ability to learn, adapt and prosper in school settings. This document argues that present educational anticipatory responses to recession are primarily bureaucratic and fiscal, ignoring the psychological context mechanisms that directly affect students engagement, motivation, and behaviour. Chronic stress owing to food insecurity, jobless parents, dilapidated school facilities and emotional turbulence, which erode learning ability and encourage detachment — these are the pressures often faced by students. The paper calls for a paradigmatic shift in educational management that grounds a set of psychological considerations within policy, planning and practice. They include psycho-social support structures built into schools, training teachers in emotional intelligence and trauma-informed pedagogy, and investment in mental health services by government. The paper concludes that education management in a recession-struck economy must span much further than infrastructure and budget, and rather as a very deliberate psychology from many stakeholders and partners in order to protect the wellbeing and sustainable results of learners. The paper adds to the global discourse around education systems that are inclusive, resilient and responsive by providing a strategic and psychological perspective to management of education in crisis.
T. O. Adeyemi, “Economic recession and educational development in Nigeria: Challenges and prospects,” J. Educ. Manag., vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 234–251, 2018.
American Psychological Association, Stress and Coping Mechanisms in Adolescents During Economic Uncertainty. Washington, DC, USA: APA Press, 2019.
U. Bronfenbrenner, The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design, 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2020.
G. J. Duncan and J. Brooks-Gunn, “Family poverty, welfare reform, and child development,” Child Development, vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 188–196, 2017.
J. S. Eccles and R. W. Roeser, “Schools as developmental contexts during adolescence,” J. Res. Adolesc., vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 281–301, 2021.
Federal Ministry of Education Nigeria, Education Sector Analysis: Impact of Economic Recession on Secondary Education. Abuja, Nigeria: Government Printing Press, 2019.
A. S. Masten, “Resilience in development: Implications of the study of successful adaptation for developmental psychopathology,” in The Emergence of a Discipline: Rochester Symposium on Developmental Psychopathology, D. Cicchetti, Ed. Hillsdale, NJ, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2018, pp. 261–294.
V. C. McLoyd, “Socioeconomic disadvantage and child development,” American Psychologist, vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 185–204, 2019.
National Bureau of Statistics Nigeria, Economic Recession Indicators and Educational Outcomes. Abuja, Nigeria: NBS Publications, 2020.
N. O. Ogbonnaya, “Management of educational resources during economic recession in Nigeria,” Afr. J. Educ. Manag., vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 45–62, 2018.
Rivers State Ministry of Education, Secondary Education Statistics and Economic Impact Analysis. Port Harcourt, Nigeria: Government Press, 2019.
A. J. Sameroff, “A unified theory of development: A dialectic integration of nature and nurture,” Child Development, vol. 81, no. 1, pp. 6–22, 2020.
UNESCO, Education in Times of Crisis: Policy Responses to Economic Downturns. Paris, France: UNESCO Publishing, 2021.
World Bank, Economic Shocks and Education: Evidence from Developing Countries. Washington, DC, USA: World Bank Publications, 2020.
H. Yoshikawa, J. L. Aber, and W. R. Beardslee, “The effects of poverty on the mental, emotional, and behavioral health of children and youth,” American Psychologist, vol. 67, no. 4, pp. 272–284, 2018.
Copyright (c) 2026 Patricia Melchizedek Ogonda , Osilem Okachiku Agbaraeke
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
In submitting the manuscript to the International Journal on Integrated Education (IJIE), the authors certify that:
- They are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
- The work described has not been formally published before, except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, thesis, or overlay journal.
- That it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere,
- The publication has been approved by the author(s) and by responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – of the institutes where the work has been carried out.
- They secure the right to reproduce any material that has already been published or copyrighted elsewhere.
- They agree to the following license and copyright agreement.
License and Copyright Agreement
Authors who publish with International Journal on Integrated Education (IJIE) agree to the following terms:
Authors retain copyright and grant the International Journal on Integrated Education (IJIE) right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
