Developing Workshop Safety Management Skills for Kyambogo University Mechanical Production Engineering Students in Uganda

Abstract

Effective workshop management skills are vital for the occupational safety of the students, lecturers, instructors, support staff, or technicians who use mechanical production or manufacturing workshops at universities. The main purpose of the paper is to examine the status of the undergraduate university students’ skills practice in safety management in the engineering educational workshops assess the common occupational hazards and risks in the workshops, and explain the prospects of promoting occupational safety standards. The paper was informed by a recent study that was done in Kyambogo University, Uganda with a focus on employable skills outputs. The paper objectives were to identify the safety measures to be used in skills practice, design precautionary signs for skills practice, implement safety measures for skills practice in the department of mechanical production Engineering. In the study, a descriptive research design was used, where both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used. The total number of respondents who participated in the study was 30. The respondents included the head of the department, lecturers, students, technicians from the Mechanical Production Engineering Department of Kyambogo University. Data were collected from respondents through the use of questionnaires and interview guides. Data were analyzed and presented using tables and then descriptions were done using percentages. The findings revealed the following occupational hazards and risks, physical hazard, ergonomic hazards, chemical hazards, psychological hazards, and biological hazards. The study also revealed that accidents always occurred in the department of mechanical and production workshops. The major causes of the accidents were due to lack of knowledge or skills, safety policy gears, carelessness, safety protective wears, proper storage of materials, and instructions’ manuals or guidelines. In addition, there are problems of lack of modern tools, digital technology, good supervision, adequate space, and awareness of the ICT led safety systems. The cost-cutting strategies for workshop safety management were warning signs, alerts, and clear labels, use of protective gear, providing first aid kits, vocationalised training, and awareness campaigns on occupation safety. There is a need for routine monitoring, renovations, replacing obsolete machines, safety tags, fire drills, industry-university benchmarking, or industrial placements