Analysis of safety management and potential liabilities from accidents among high school students in Kenya

Abstract

Safety is the condition of being protected against physical, social and other types of consequences of failure, damage, accidents or other events which could be considered non desirable. Safety management in high schools refers to comprehensive systems designed to manage safety and health elements in the school. Inevitably, safety management may fail in a system resulting in an injury. An injury is a physical damage done to a person or part of their body. Injuries in schools are of particular concern as they account for a significant amount of sickness and disability among students. There has been an increase in legal litigation of parents and civil societies against school authorities sometimes out of negligence that lead to injuries. The purpose of this study was to establish the safety management levels and potential liabilities in high schools in Kenya. It was conducted through descriptive survey of high schools from all the 8 provinces in Kenya which were selected through disproportionate stratified random method and provided the data that was analyzed and interpreted. The school’s Principals, Nurses and other healthcare givers from the selected schools were purposively selected, interviewed and asked to provide registers with the information on injury occurrence among the students. Observation, description and documentation of the available healthcare resources in the schools in were made. Secondary data for corroboration with the selected data were obtained from the Provincial and District hospitals and from Directorate of Occupational Safety and Health – Kenya. Most of the injuries (31%) were caused by falls and there was no significant statistical difference