出版社：Australian Institutes for Educational Research
摘要：School safety is important in enhancing children’s learning. It is defined as measures putin place by staff, parents, learners and other stakeholders. The measures are meant tominimise risk conditions that may cause accidents, bodily injury as well as emotional andpsychological distress. Accidents, if not prevented, can cause disability or death, whileemotional and psychological trauma can lead to lack of self-esteem which may result inpoor performance in education. Therefore meaningful teaching and learning cannothappen in an environment that is not safe and secure for both learners and staff. Thisarticle presents findings of a study conducted in preschools in informal settlements inNairobi County, Kenya, focusing on safety and security for children in preschools. Amixed methods approach involving concurrent qualitative and quantitative datacollection procedures was utilised for the study, conducted in 54 preschools involving 54head teachers/managers, 78 pre-school teachers and four officers in education in NairobiCity County. Findings revealed that government has endeavoured to come up withguidelines and minimum standards through various policies, but preschools in informalsettlements are experiencing a myriad of challenges impacting negatively on children’slearning. Among these are poor infrastructure, lack of play space and play equipment,congested classrooms and school compounds not fenced. In view of the challenges, it isrecommended that county government in collaboration with other stakeholders in earlychildhood should come up with model preschools in informal settlements to createconducive learning environments. There is also a need for frequent inspection ofpreschools to ensure that safety and security standards are observed and implemented.
