Impact of School safety in Education Case study on unsafe building
Our country is a developing country where the schooling system is upgrading gradually in a good pace. But, there are problems which arise in many places of the country. Although our schools provide valuable education, they are not developed to the necessary recommended standard. An extremely important aspect which we should consider is the structures of the school buildings. The place where we study is considered as a temple. This place should be secure and safe for children in order to for them to continue their education peacefully. When we research about this, we can identify differences of structures in urban area versus country side. The schools are constructed as vast buildings with better class setup in urban or city area. In an urban school many facilities are available for students. Both government and semi government authorities are responding quickly for them.
The building infrastructure in urban schools are very much developed and safe for the students. The buildings in those areas are renovated regularly. But in the rural areas both large schools as well as small schools are present. School blocks are extremely old and unsafe there. Many accidents happen and sometimest it may cause deaths also.
More than 3000 unsafe schools which are dangerous to students are identified in a recent study. Frequently, school safety is a critical issue in the lives of students, teachers, parents and the society as whole. There is a growing concern in the safety of schools because of the school incidents that occurs in our country. Students can’t learn properly if their safety is threatened. So, vital care should be taken in providing a suitable environment for studies.
The students will be afraid of going to school if an accident or something alike happens in a school. They will always be under the fear that this might happen to them in the future and their path of studying will be disturbed. Educators are unable to provide all the instructions in an environment that they feel is unsafe. Students should be notified about the problems in every places of school and how they can escape from them. Each schools should take every possible efforts to guarantee the safety of their students and teachers. Through the development, training, and implementation of school system and individual school safety plans, safer environments that enhance and allow for learning will be provided for all school personals and students. Several important strategies and resources can be used to create safe, positive, and secure school environments.
When we consider the types of problems that occur in a school, the first and foremost problem would be caused by the damaged buildings. That is, falling of damaged parts of the buildings on class rooms. The next problem is the accident from fire. This affects the students severely. Every schools should have proper awareness and equipment needed to face the situation immediately. The objective of all school safety planning efforts is to manage risks. Effective planning, which includes training and exercising, improves the school’s ability to keep emergencies from becoming emergencies. Crisis intervention is sensitive, occurring after an emergency event, whereas, emergency planning is active, enabling schools to reduce the effect and magnitude of emergencies and to respond proper and fast.
Undeveloped school buildings frequently have unsafe drinking water, shabby environments, lack of fire alarms and fire safety, poor ventilation, insufficient lighting, noisy classrooms, improper wirings, and cracks in floors and walls. When a school is being built, necessary care should be taken to build class rooms which don’t produce echo effects which causes disturbance in teaching as well as listening and studying.
Research shows that, safe schools create strong relationship between the teachers and students as well as between the teachers and families. Modifications to school environments should be done to have a safer environment. Modification means the sustained and continuing actions done to decrease or stop the long term risks to people and property from accidents and their effects. The importance on nonstop actions to reduce long term risks differentiates modification from preparation and response tasks which are required to survive safely and with the least risk. Effective moderation actions can decrease the impact, the requirements and the expense of critical problems.
One of the best way to be away from the disaster damage is prevention. It refers to actions taken to avoid an accident from occurring. Prevention also involves applying brain power and other information to various activities in an effective way. Authorities in the school should encourage students to report school safety threat information. Inspections should be done at school regularly by relevant authorities and records should be maintained correctly. These information would be of immense help for them to get the solutions for the problematic situations.
Improved investigations and security operations like CCTV cameras in the threatened places can be used to get more information. Inquiries can be done to know more about the incident and source of the threat in an accurate manner. Isolation of students from the affected area as quick as possible will be very helpful to avoid injuries and deaths. Specific law enforcement operations aimed at preventing, blocking, prohibiting, or disturbing illegal activity for earning money have to be implemented. The law should give severe punishments to the schools which ignore school safety by getting bribery, other financial benefits and abusing school funds allocated by the government. This will make small changes in the above problems.
Then we come to preparedness. It is another tactic we use to identify and solve problems in an effective way. We can be more predictive in those situations, as a result we can win those situations. Preparation is the set of activities required to build, withstand, and improve the ability to moderate, prevent, prepare, respond and recover from school and community incidents. Preparedness allows for planning and consideration about the possible incidents as well as giving an effective response to every problems. Preparedness requires determining what you will do if a problem occurs and essential services are disturbed, developing a plan for possibilities, and practicing the plan will help us to be better prepared.
It can be done with the following steps. First we have to identify a best team to plan things. This team should identify the incidents and report it to the relevant authorities. Then these authorities should analyze about the incidents in that area. When the plan is prepared they have to find better resources to get ready to face the accidents. Then finally we come to end of preparedness. The training should be done correctly. Prevention of an issue is better than safety after the issue has happened. To ensure the safety of all students, staffs, workers and outworkers who use electrical equipment and appliances, maintenance of electrical equipment, identification of defective electrical equipment and prevention of accidents due to electricity must be done. Electric leakage and fire will be formed if any problems occur due to the electrical equipment.
Electrical accidents are caused by a combination of the following factors. The electrical connection systems which don’t have a proper protection system, use of unsafe appliances and equipment installed in a hazardous way. Any of these will make the school premises unsafe in that area. The electrical lines should be done and checked clearly. Worst damages will occur to the school environment even if a small mistake is made in the electrical supplies.
Responding immediately to an incident is important as soon as it is identified. It involves search and rescue, medical services, access control, and returning disturbed services and systems to normal operations. Mainly school staffs should be trained on safety planning after accidents. Practices and exercises should be conducted to make sure that everyone knows what to do when a real incident occurs. They should be helped to identify how they can manage in the above situations.
Recovery process is done after the damage has occurred. Recovery procedures are the actions required to return the school to its normal operations. The main purpose of all the recovery plans is to restore all normal operations as soon as possible. Recovery activities may vary depending on the incident, the amount of damage, and the number of injuries.
First, we come to medical requirements needed to make better relief to the students who are affected by incidents. Irregular creation of school building causes hygienic problems to the students. It spreads diseases among the students. It creates social problems between school and public. Sanitary and other important problems occur form these problems. These diseases reduce the talent of students and their activities. These schools become draw back to the schools’ educational standard. Even many schools have been closed totally due to these problems. This is a negative drawback to the educational development of the country. When we come to other side, psychological problems arise among children. Even though they escaped from the disaster they are mentally affected badly. They need a counselor relief to get away from the effects of the accident. Small children cannot understand counseling. So it is better if we avoid accidents. Psychological recovery must be given in a way that they can be understood.
Infrastructure activities should be done by school authority. When an accident occurs, the total infrastructure of the school gets collapsed. It should be recovered as soon as possible in order to continue the teaching process. Reparations of damaged buildings and structures should be done quickly. If it takes more time, then the students will face drawback in studies. They cannot complete their year studies within the period allocated. This affects the whole school grades.
When a new building is built by civil engineers they should consider the following factors. Buildings should not be too high, if so, there should be proper security measures like closing the staircases and terrace with high wall, proper ventilation and air flow should be considered. No task is important as creating a safe learning environment for our country’s children. Recent events of child deaths due to the collapsing of buildings and fire accidents indicate the necessity of ensuring the safety of students and teachers in the schools.
It has been identified that most of the schools do not have addressed to the issue of school safety. The following are some of the activities that will be useful to create safer schools. Many of these ideas and concepts might have been initiated and carried out by the school authorities along with the district and local administration. The school safety programme mainly targets on creating a disaster free school environment. Students and staff need skills in many aspects and this can be shown by using simulated programs about disaster safety.
School life is the most precious and the most remarkable days in our life. All of the students in our country must complete these days without any obstacles. The word unsafe must be removed from their lives. Schools are the basement for the development of a country. Everyone has a responsibility to lead it upwards. We have to promote awareness and the necessity of the course of study among students as well as teachers. Precaution activities must be included in their syllabus as a subject. Conducting seminars, awareness programs and workshops will make the children gain a good capacity to treat disasters in schools.
Millions of students attend structurally failing schools that put their health and safety at risk on everyday life basis. Second rate school buildings mostly have unsafe drinking water, dirty environments, less number of fire alarms and fire safety, insufficient ventilation, insufficient lighting, noisy classrooms, no wiring for technology, etc. Many studies have concluded that students in substandard school buildings perform at lower levels than students in newer, functional buildings. Researchers have found that students in deteriorating school buildings score between 5 to 11 percentile points lower on standardized achievement tests than students in modern buildings, after controlling for income level. Studies indicate that specific building conditions, including poor air quality, excessive temperatures, poor lighting, and high levels of noise contribute to lower the levels of students’ performance. Failing schools have also been found to have a negative impact on student and teacher morale and have been linked to higher levels of teacher income. ‘Let’s remember that the time we spend on prevention today may be the life we safe tomorrow’. According to the above mentioned quote, we can see clearly about the steps we must take to uplift our country’s educational level. Every government official, non-governmental and other welfare organizations should clearly identify their responsibilities and they should work hard to avoid these hazards in the future.