School Safety: We Are All Responsible

(2008-05-20 16:56:00.0)

By Ilan Kelman CICERO (Center for International Climate and Environment Research – Oslo, Norway) http://www.ilankelman.org ilan_kelman@hotmail.com Education is a fundamental human right (UN, 1948) which is being pursued through an Education for All campaign (UNESCO, 2004). The right to life is also fundamental (UN, 1948) and it directly implies a right to safety. Combining these two rights leads to the right to a safe education. Education is an ongoing, lifelong process which continually happens formally and informally. Freire (1970) refers to education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. Particularly for youth, much of that education process happens at school, usually marked by a fixed structure which can range from underneath the largest tree in the village to a multi-storey building. The school, though, cannot be defined by only the building or the place. Turner (1972) wrote about housing as a verb, leading to Davis (1978) comment that shelter must be considered as a process, not as an object. Shelter as a process means that it is a series of ongoing actions for fulfilling certain needs rather than being objects or products only, such as specific types of buildings which provide merely a roof and walls. Those needs could also be considered to be fundamental human rights, including privacy, dignity, physical and psychological security, and protection from the elements. The same rationale applies to school. School is not just the product or object of a specific building or a specific place, but is instead a process by which education takes place in a formalised, social setting. That process of formalised, social education means acquiring skills, values, knowledge, behaviour, and attitudes to be a fully contributing member towards a more sustainable society. Since pedagogy and disaster risk reduction accept education and school as processes, by definition, that process should include safety. That safety must be available over all time scales, from day-to-day actions to extreme events which most people would never experience. Safety applies to being on site at school, travelling to and from school, and being involved in school-related activities, from homework to field trips. Without such safety, education by definition cannot be complete and the place or building by definition is not a school. At least, that would be in ideal circumstances. Failure of safety, as often occurs in reality, is a failure to implement the complete definition of school and education. That means that the right to safety and the right to education have both been violated. These failures occur frequently, around the world, and in multiple forms (Table 1). Click Here to open complete document