Managing Safety in Higher Education Institutions: A Case in the Philippines

Abstract

Higher Education Institutions (HEI's) are often regarded as sanctuaries, protected environments where young people explore great ideas in a collegial atmosphere and make lifelong friendships and learnings. The change in mind-set necessary to achieve the mission-vision of any academic institution is a sustained, long-term effort to transform education at all levels. The higher education institution in the Region IVA is composed of two type; the private and public institution. Majority of higher education in Region IVA are private proprietary educational institutions operating from 11-20 years of service with 11-20 academic programs with below 200 employees and students’ population ranging from 1,000 - 8,000. Safety Management Plans are currently used by higher education institution in Region IVA. Among the 18 identified safety management plans, safety training for employees and students are most frequently used. The safety management practices identified and applicable to higher education institution were academic laboratory activities, physical plant, disaster preparedness, and environmental hazards. Based on the findings, all areas where classified with a verbal description of good. This means that higher education instiutions in Region IVA are 60-80 percent compliant to safety standards. This research also reveals that using T-Test that there are significant differences between private and public higher education institutions Region IVA in the their current safety management practices in terms of academic laboratory activities, physical plant and disaster preparedness, and environmental hazards. Moreover, among the identified profile of higher education institution, using spearman's rank-order correlation, the type of institution, number of programs, and number employees are the identified variables with significant relationship with the safety management practices. The proposed academic safety standards will address and bridge the gap of higher education institution in aligning the requirements and support the continuous development in sustaining a safety environment in achieving the mission-vision of higher education institution towards quality education