Abstract:

Introduction:
Protecting people’s health and safety both at work and outside it forms a fundamental part of the policies of more advanced countries. In the European Union, therefore, building health and safety education into teacher training programes at all levels of education is considered primordial, as outlined in the Community strategy 2007-2012 on health and safety at work (Commission of the European Communities, 2007). The requirement to ensure health and safety education takes place at all levels was reinforced in the subsequent strategy for the period 2014-2020 (EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2014-2020), which also highlighted the need to improve safety and health in schools. Teachers’ decisive role in the education of people in key stages of life means they play a vital part in achieving this aim. However, despite the efforts made in recent years in most of the countries in our region, the current situation in schools does not yet seem to meet the standard proposed. Training teachers in health and safety and risk prevention before they start their careers could bring about an improvement in this area (Caldas, 2018). This means the training of teaching professionals should begin when they are studying for their degrees. Although the curriculum does not currently include standard training in health and safety, given how necessary it is for future teachers, it can be argued that it should be mandatory.

Objective:
To find out what training future teachers currently receive in the fields of Health, Welfare, Safety and Risk Prevention in Spain’s public universities. Materials and methods: An in-depth review of the academic transcripts for the degrees in infant and primary education in Spain’s public universities was carried out to assess what content, subjects, learning outcomes and competencies related to these areas are included in the training of future teachers.

Results and conclusions:
The academic transcripts of the degrees examined do not appear to demonstrate that future infant and primary teachers in Spain receive training in basic safety matters and risk prevention. Teacher training degrees in Early Childhood Education offer some content related to health, nutrition and hygiene in the key stages of childhood, but this content does not appear (or is optional) in the teacher training degree in Primary Education. In this course, the only reference to health is in the optional course in Physical Education offered by some universities. Finally, there is no evidence in either teacher training degree at any university of mandatory or holistic training for future teachers on how to care for their own well-being or prevent risks in their work.

Keywords:

Education, occupational medicine, degrees, teaching, university, primary, early childhood, teachers.