School Health And Safety - Nepal versus UK

Guest post from Emily Sherr, my 19 year old daughter, who is studying Education with History at Durham University. Emily has just returned from volunteering in a school in Nepal.

One of the things that annoys me most in the British education system is the obsessive concern over health and safety. We really haven’t found the balance of a good, helpful and productive level of precaution and have ended up with a system which is really over the top. Judging by my experiences over the summer in Nepal, we are not the only country which is finding the balance hard. Nepal, however, is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, with health and safety being a nice idea which isn’t really implemented. Which ones better, I’m not sure, but both definitely need work.

I think this point is best illustrated if we look at school trips. I went on two great school trips in Nepal which were really good fun but probably not very safe! In Britain the process of organising a school trip is long, rigorous and excessive. Everything is organised to the very last detail; parental permission is obtained long in advance, forms are filled in (which in my experience are long and pointless!), student to staff ratios are sorted, risk assessments are done, insurance is finalised, back up plans implemented, first aid kits prepared and many more behind the scenes procedures are completed. Everything is documented, checked, double checked and checked again. This intense process must have annoyed parents and teachers alike.

This process is very different in Nepal! First let me just make clear that the school trips were only for the boarders and not the day students and took place on a Saturday. The school trip was announced a few days in advance and on the day of the trip whoever wanted to come just jumped onto the school bus which wasn’t big enough for us all so younger ones were piled onto laps. A dubious head count was done and we set off. Once we were out of the police controlled zone, volunteers were allowed to sit on the roof of the bus which was great fun and had amazing views. As the children don’t leave the school much, when they do, they like to make an effort. One of the girls was in a pink princess dress and others all dressed up for the occasion which was really amusing. On both trips we climbed mountains. The first of these was much more like rock climbing in parts as we scrambled up very steep paths. Paths is probably not the correct word as it make it sound like there was a set route on which it would be difficult to get lost. This would be incorrect. There were many paths and no one really knew which one to follow, especially on the way down when we kept getting lost. The children all went off at different speeds, most of the time without an adult (by adult I mean the 7 volunteers and 1 teacher). I somehow became the first aider as I’d brought two antiseptic wipes and a plaster! It’s was all a bit of an unorganised mess. Having said that, we made it to the top, and then we made it down again. All the children got on the bus and we went back to school. Admittedly it could have been organised better, none of the children had water with them - I lucky did because otherwise I would have got dehydrated. We could have made sure children were always with an adult and that there was a first aid kit - but we didn’t and everything was fine. The same can be said about school trip number two. Leeches were the main problem here and over half the children were leeched. Although not great, leeches aren’t that harmful and it’s more unpleasant than anything else. This time a headcount probably would have been useful as we nearly left a child behind but he was fine and was returned to school in one piece.

So all the kids were ok and had a great time on the school trips so no harm was done. I still think that things do need to change and probably will at some point in the future. It just shows you how different cultures and countries work - neither Britain nor Nepal have got health and safety right in my opinion but both do sort of work in their own way. I’m sure things go wrong in Nepal but they still do in Britain despite the intense and vigorous policies. Either way I thoroughly enjoyed my Nepali school trips and I know the kids did too - for now I suppose that’s sort of all that matters. I wonder if any country or even school has managed to find the balance between excessive and underused when it comes to health and safety.