Title: Risk Governance in Education: Applying Occupational Safety Frameworks to School-Based Experiential Learning Activities
Authors: Dr. Arinaitwe Julius, Asiimwe Isaac Kazaara, Akampurira Sarah
Volume: 10
Issue: 8
Pages: 221-229
Publication Date: 2026/08/28
Abstract:
Experiential learning activities such as laboratory practicals, field trips, industrial training, agricultural and vocational work, and sports and physical education exposed secondary school learners in Uganda to a range of physical, chemical, biological, and ergonomic hazards that were rarely governed by structured occupational safety and health (OSH) frameworks. This study assessed the application of occupational safety risk governance frameworks, anchored on the hierarchy of controls, in the management of school-based experiential learning activities. A cross-sectional analytical design was adopted, drawing 373 activity-level records from 40 purposively and randomly sampled secondary schools across Central, Eastern, Western, and Northern Uganda. Data were collected using a structured, interviewer-administered questionnaire adapted from the ISO 45001 occupational health and safety management framework and analysed using univariate, bivariate, and multilevel (mixed-effects) statistical techniques to account for the nesting of activities within schools. Findings indicated that only 41.8% of experiential learning activities had a documented risk assessment conducted prior to implementation, and overall compliance with the OSH framework stood at 50.4%. Adoption of hierarchy-of-controls measures was inconsistent, ranging from 33.0% for elimination-based controls to 63.3% for administrative controls such as standard operating procedures and supervision. An adverse safety event was recorded in 21.7% of activities. Bivariate analysis showed that the presence of a school safety committee was significantly associated with lower adverse event rates (7.8% versus 28.0%, ?²=18.12, p<0.001) and that schools with lower mean hazard identification scores experienced significantly more adverse events (t=-4.76, p<0.001). The multilevel logistic regression model, which yielded an intraclass correlation coefficient of approximately 0.17, indicating that a meaningful proportion of variance in compliance was attributable to between-school differences, showed that the presence of a safety committee (AOR=2.17, 95% CI: 1.40-3.38, p<0.001), prior risk assessment (AOR=2.64, 95% CI: 1.83-3.81, p<0.001), and higher hazard identification scores (AOR=1.25, 95% CI: 1.10-1.43, p<0.001) were independent predictors of OSH framework compliance, whereas school ownership and location were not statistically significant. The study concluded that risk governance in Ugandan school-based experiential learning remained fragmented and heavily dependent on the presence of functional, school-level safety governance structures rather than on institutional type or geography. It recommended the institutionalisation of mandatory school safety committees, the integration of structured pre-activity risk assessment protocols into experiential learning planning, and the adoption of a tiered hierarchy-of-controls compliance framework by the Ministry of Education and Sports to standardise occupational safety governance across all categories of experiential learning activities.