Health and Safety in Kenya has evolved over the years with more and more companies focusing on the safety of their employees both at the workplaces and out of these places of work. So worse was the scenerio that the government of Kenya in 2007 had to introduce health and safety regulations into mandatory laws with a more focus on employees and their workplaces. This in essence is a good gesture, but Kenyan universities are yet to take the challenge and introduce courses in specific health and safety areas to address the gap in knowledge base in the country. With specific refference to fire safety, there is currently no Kenyan university to the best of my knowledge and statistics that offers a course in fire safety e.g. fire engineering et.al.
The devolution in Kenya has brought with it, devolved functions and specifically created more fire stations in Kenya than any of the neighboring countries. But what remains a myth is the knowledge background of the of the fire stations officers leave alone their job specification that most members of the public believe is only attached to responding fires in major towns and slums as per and when they occur. This knowledge gap in fire safety is mostly and mainly tied to disaster management but what one must note is the sense that in order to administer business, there is the importance of sales persons, marketers and accountants and others more. Therefore in order to manage disasters effectively it is prudent to have fire engineers as fire one of the major disasters in Kenya and other disasters like terrorism also results to fire as one of the main destruction.
Out of the universities that are currently underway to the path of embracing fire engineering is the Masinde Muliro University. Through the establishment of center for disaster management and humanitarian assistance, the Masinde Muliro has cut a niche in the crowded market by focusing its strength in the field that is ignored by many and has attracted many scholars in the recent past. With its post and undergraduate studies, the university is poist to be the disaster management center of choice in the comming years just like Kenyatta University used to be known for education and JKUAT for agriculture even though these norms have changed in the recent days.
Fire Safety Engineering and Fire Protection Engineering
Many scholars in Kenya have studied the implications of most fires in Kenya including the Sachangwan fire, the Nakummat fire and pipeline fire which were major fires in Kenyan fire disaster history but known of the studies have recommended on the knowledge gap that entails fire protection engineering. Fire protection engineering according the free encyclopedia focuses on fire detection, suppression and mitigation of the same while fire safety engineering focuses on human behaviors and how to maintain a favorable environment in case an evacuation is necessary. Fire engineering encompasses these two scenarios but fire protection engineering is usually used to include fire safety engineering. Kenyan universities should therefore look into introducing this course in our campuses to address this gap and not only will they give direction to quality standards in fire service delivery but they will eliminate the insinuation organizations have been implying in Kenya today, that to hire a fire officer, you need to focus on their experience alone as qualifications do not apply.
The write is a Phd candidate on fire service delivery: Nairobi, Kenya
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