An investigation of school physical environment safety in the Greater Taung area

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate the safety of school physical environments in the Greater Taung Project Area Office of the North West Province. The concept of school physical environment safety was approached from an ecological perspective of the school as a social environment. Therefore school safety was determined as function of the school community's interaction with the school environment, which comprises the physical environment and the psychosocial environment. The school's physical environment comprises buildings and school grounds and its safety status is made up of the following elements school buildings - grounds and safety systems and procedures. Creating a safe and secure school physical environment was found to necessitate maintenance, which should allow for emergencies, prevention, routine and prediction maintenance as well as surveillance which entails monitoring the school's environment closely and is made up of natural surveillance, access control and territoriality. Creating a safe and secure school physical environment necessitates forming engaging on a strategic safety planning process wherein school stakeholders jointly determine the safety vision of the school. The empirical study found that schools' physical environments needed more attention that they were receiving currently. There was a need for formalized safety planning and implementation processes. For instance, a need was found for functional school safety committees and school safety policies which would entail such aspects as safety systems and procedures in terms of maintenance and surveillance procedures and plans. There was also a dire need for the application of equity and redress process with regard to rural school, which were found to be mostly derelict and in need of resources to ensure their physical environment safety.