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Integration of Design Safety into Curricula in the Undergraduate Programs: The Academician Perspective

The current and growing construction industry in Malaysia has led to increasing of accidents related to construction workers. In an attempt to decrease accidents on site, the design safety concept is the most suitable measures to date. Though the impact is evident and potential benefits of its implementation are apparent, widespread application of this intervention in the Malaysia’s construction industry is currently lacking, especially in the academic sector. Therefore, this paper aimed to explore the integration of safety and health to the current curricula focusing on the engineering programs and their perceptions towards design safety concept and its implementation.

The types of design disciplines included in the research study were limited to academicians. A total of 72 respondents received via questionnaire and the responses were scored on a 5-point Likert Scale to express their level of agreement. The respondents had varied backgrounds representing a variety of expertise, durations of work experience and their role in the academic position.

The mean score for current education culture among academicians was 2.43. This below average value indicated that academicians mostly did not agree that their current lectures or teaching system involved design safety concept. And the results of current health and safety integration also showed that the adequacy of health and safety content in the current curricula was low (2.5972) that led to graduates with low knowledge on the construction legislations and regulations (2.6389). Besides, although majority agreed on the positive effect of design safety towards accidents on site, there was still minority who believed that the concept had no significant effect towards site safety.

This paper concluded that there was no major impediment from the academic sector on the implementation and integration of design safety concept to the undergraduate curricula. The implementation of design safety should be in a well-organized structure for effective results towards zero accident as well as increase the designers’ value in the construction industry.

Article by Mohd Saidin Misnan, et al, from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

Full access: http://mrw.so/5jRLe

Image by Alex Miklowski, from Flickr-cc.

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