OSH In School

In this post, i will not be writing about what specific hazards are present at school and how to eliminate them but rather i will explain how to put in place an OSH management system that could be use to manage and control the risk at school. The reason is each school or any workplace has different type of hazards and need different way of controlling the hazards. To apply the same hazard to all school is not effective. To have a effective OSH mangement system to the right way to go.

1. Safety and Health Policy. Everything start from the fundamental. A policy will outline the core responsibility of the school management and their commitment to osh, to ensuring the safety and health of all occupants at the school, to provide resource to management safety and health and etc. The policy shall be sign off by the chairman of the school management.

2. Safety and Health Committee: The committee is responsible to carry out all the safety and health activities at the school. It should be consist of a Chairman (board of school director), a secretary (safety and health officer, if appointed or safety representative), min 4 representative from management (board of director, principle or vice principle) and min 4 representative form teachers, parent, student representative or support / ancillary staffs. The elected committee members are based on total number of school teacher and students exceeding 100 persons. The member will meet to discuss and plan out the activities to ensure safety and health.

3. Safety and Health Resource: Beside financial budget, other resource include school layout plan, building plan, osh organizational chart, evacuation route, emergency assembly point, safety signage, personal protective equipment (PPE), training and promotion for osh.

4. Safety and Health Rules and Responsibility: Rules on safety and health should be established, published and communicated to the staff, parent and student. Appoint person responsible for osh activity or contact person like fire warden, first aider and security officer.

5. Risk Assessment / HIRARC: Risk assessment or safety inspection on school compound shall be carried out to identify potential hazards, evaluate the risk and control measure to reduce the risk. Please refer the hazard identification, risk assessment, risk control (HIRARC) guideline publish by DOSH is a good reference on how to carry out risk assessment. Training should be provided to the safety and health committee to supply them the knowledge and skill to carried out the inspection.

6. Emergency Facilities: Fire fighting facilities (fire extinguisher, fire hose, sand bucket), first aid facilities (first aid box, school clinic), chemical spillage clean up kit (if laboratory is present), evacuation route and emergency response team should be provided.

Hope that this post will give you an insight on setting of OSH in school. Thank you for reading.