Safety and health education in technical high schools is especially important because the great majority of the students engage in the industrial field after graduation. But there are few reports on the state of safety and health education in technical high schools in Korea. The aims of this study were to identify the problems of the present safety and health education in technical high schools in Korea and to propose the ways of improving health and safety education.
To conduct this study, the textbooks for health and safety related courses, i.e., Introduction to Industry, Gyoryun(drill), and Physical Education, were reviewed. A questionnaire was mailed to the teachers of Introduction to Industry, Gyoryun, Physical Education, and school nurses in 188 technical high schools and the teachers of Gyoryun, Physical Education, and school nurses in 376 general high schools in November 1997. The final response rates were 42.0% for teachers of Introduction to Industry, 62.9% for teachers of Gyoryun, 47.9% for teachers of Physical Education, and 33.0% for school nurses. Also, a survey by self-administered questionnaire on the knowledge, attitude, and practice about safety and health was conducted from May through July 1998 among 44 employees graduated from technical high schools and 44 employees graduated from general high schools since 1995.
The analysis of the textbooks showed that the contents of the ´Industrial Safety and Environment´ section in Introduction to Industry were rather for safety managers than industrial workers and the contents about occupational hygiene and health were scanty. The majority of ´Accident and Disaster´ and ´Hazardous Substances´ section in Gyoryun overlapped with those in Introduction to Industry and several mistakes about health related descriptions were found. Some contents of Physical Education, ´Mental health´, ´Emergency Care´, ´Communicable Disease´, ´Noncommunicable Disease´, and ´Food Hygiene´ overlapped with those of Gyoryun.
The teachers lectured safety and health related sections of textbook completely in 84.8% for Introduction to Industry, 62.1% for Gyoryun, 20.8% for Physical Education and the most frequent reason for the incomplete education was shortage of time. The teachers of Introduction to Industry, Gyoryun, and Physical Education commonly regarded safety more important than health and felt more difficulties in teaching health than safety. Only 26.6% of Introduction to Industry teachers, 53.2% of school nurses, 59.0% of Gyoryun teachers, and 36.1% of Physical Education teachers had received the training courses for safety and health. The 58.1% of school nurses thought that the most important thing to improve safety and health education is to adopt the full-time safety and health educator and to establish the safety and health education as an independent course. The most of the teachers agreed that it is necessary to take the safety and health education as an independent course.
The results from the survey among employees showed no specific differences between the group of technical high school and that of general high school. This suggests that the safety and health education in technical high schools may not be more effective than that of general high schools.
To improve the safety and health education in technical high schools, followings must be conducted. Firstly, the textbooks for safety and health must be rewritten to expand and upgrade the contents. Secondly, the opportunities of training course for health and safety teachers must be broadened. Lastly, safety and health related courses and teachers should be specialized.
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