Safety education should begin in school

An European Agency For Safety And Health At Work product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Mar 8, 2002

We need to teach children to live and work safely: this was the key conclusion of a European seminar on occupational safety and health and education, earlier this week in Bilbao.

We need to teach children to live and work safely: this was the key conclusion of a European seminar on occupational safety and health and education, earlier this week in Bilbao.

The world can be a dangerous place - and it's never too soon to get that message across, even to very young children.

It's also a process that should continue throughout their schooldays and beyond.

Starting young means that children are more likely to be able to tackle safety and health risks in later life, according to experts at the seminar, which was jointly organised by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work and the Spanish Presidency of the European Union.

Young people are not sufficiently prepared to meet health risks at work.

Recent European research indicates that young people aged between 18 and 24 are 1.4 times more likely than the average worker to suffer a work-related accident.

If that statistic is to be improved, learning about health and safety - 'risk education' - needs to begin right at the start of a child's education.

Children should be made aware of what's dangerous in their environment - at home, at school, and at play - and what they can do to help both themselves and those around them to stay safe.

As children grow up, teachers and parents can reinforce and help them develop their knowledge of health and safety issues helping prepare them for the world of work.

Teachers will need resources and skills to pass on the knowledge to children, and so will parents if they are to provide support outside the classroom.

Clear, common goals need to be established between ministries and other key organisations, including the social partners, to ensure that learning about safety and health forms part of all levels of education and training.

At European level, the new EU occupational health and safety strategy could provide a major framework for developing education and training on workplace health and safety as part of a prevention culture.

Existing European funds could to a higher degree be used to support this goal.

The Spanish Minister of Employment and Social Affairs, Juan Carlos Aparicio, during his closing speech, highlighted: "We cannot talk about health at work as a social reality if we only think about it when we need it or when an accident happens.

We have to integrate the value of health at work in a steady and progressive way.

Therefore it is essential that this is part of education, from primary school onwards".

Agency Director, Hans-Horst Konkolewsky commented: "Too many young people enter the world of work without sufficient knowledge of the health risks they are going to face.

If children are made aware of health and safety issues at an early age, they're much more likely to successfully manage such risks in later life.

The message from this seminar is clear - 'start young, stay safe'".