Occupational safety and health in construction industry management (OSHCIM) implementation – Academician’s perspectives

Abstract

The high incidents number of injuries and fatality rates in the construction industry are generally due to hazards on site. Early intervention of hazards could lead to safer construction processes. The Safety by Design (SbD) is a process that identifies hazard and assesses risks early in the project design stage, in comparison to during the construction stage. A study in Spain shows that there is still lack of emphasis on the SbD concept in higher education although the concept had been implemented for quite some time. The lack of tertiary education regarding SbD could lead to insufficient knowledge for the effective implementation of SbD by future professionals. As for the Malaysian construction industry, SbD will be soon implemented as the Guidelines on Occupational Safety and Health in Construction Industry (Management) – OSHCIM. Therefore, this paper sought to review the perception of academician regarding OSHCIM implementation. The quantitative strategy is adopted, and a set of questionnaires are distributed among academicians involved in educating architecture, civil engineering, quantity surveying, mechanical and electrical engineering courses in Malaysia’s Institute of Higher Learning. The research indicates that most of the academicians appear to agree that sufficient knowledge and the right attitude is essential for the successful implementation of SbD education in university. It seems that all academicians from different background have higher attitude mean score compared to their knowledge mean score. Even though some of the academicians might not be familiar with the concept, most of the academician was not against it and had a positive attitude towards it.