Abstract:

The Internet gospel has penetrated the nooks and crannies of the world, log onto ‘The Net and meet new friends, order textbooks, groove to the latest music, watch the news, pay for goods and services the modern way- go global! Indubitably, the potential benefits of Internet are innumerable. However, Internet users forgot that all coins usually have two sides: ‘You can pay me now or you can pay me later’. In the haste to get on-line, organizations as well as individuals have sometimes ignored security risks attached to Internet usage. Hence, at present the need for cyber crime prevention is more evident than ever. In the light of the foregoing, this study developed the Action Cyber Crime Prevention Programme for school-age children in Nigeria. The study employed principally quantitative and qualitative methodologies: observation and in-depth interviews among 219 students purposefully selected from six secondary schools in Nigeria. Three schools were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The students established the contents of the curriculum through focus group discussion and validated the curriculum in their respective schools. Results show that there is a significant change in the attainment scores and attitude of students exposed to the Action Cyber Crime Prevention Programme than their colleagues taught through the conventional lecture method. The study concluded by outlining how schools and Internet security companies could use the Action Cyber Crime Prevention Programme to ameliorate the incidences of cyber crime among school-age children.

Keywords:

Action, Cyber Crime, Cyber Crime Prevention.