Evaluation of Safety and Security Measures: Preliminary Findings of a University Student Housing Facility in South Africa

Abstract

Safety and security management of tertiary institutions have become a global concern. Studies show that the safety of student housing facilities (SHFs) are not giving the necessary attention in tertiary institutions. The neglect of the safety aspects of SHF exposes students to several risk and dangers such as accidents, theft, fire outbreak, sexual harassment, assault and, worse of all, death. Consequently, the paper investigates students’ perception about the level of provision of security and fire safety measures and their satisfaction level with the performance/functionality of those measures in a post-graduate on-campus SHF. The study is exploratory in nature. The methodology used for the study is mixed method. Data was collected from students who are registered member of the residence through a closed-ended questionnaire and personal observation was carried out by the researchers to validate the result. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data. The results obtained revealed that measures such as: water sprinkler system, and smoke extractor were not provided in the SHF, while measures including fire extinguisher, fire assembly point and fire alarm were poorly provided. Other risk factors identified include: absence of CCTV, lack of weapon detector and poor access control. It is evident that students demonstrate a high level of dissatisfaction with the provision and performance level of security and fire safety measures at their residence.