Abstract:

Some education institutions endure losses of people and assets to undesirable causes such as attacks, diseases, theft of assets, and so on. In some developed and developing countries, news emerge where learners are regularly attacked. These include gunning down of students by other students. There has been news showing areas in which crimes of gross magnitude were committed. In a health sciences university (HSU) in South Africa, recent deaths were reported where chronic disease attacks could not be contained. In another incident, a student attacked a staff member with a gun. In yet another campus, computers were hacked and information kept by hackers who demanded ransom before they could release the information to the owners, or they would destroy the information. This shows that health, safety and security (HSS) of people and assets are threatened. The campuses prefer to allow free movement of its personnel. However, the freedom permits culprits to infiltrate innocent campus community members. Many of these incidents have been captured in the videos of the security personnel. While some incidents can be shown on screen, they cannot be prevented as they are identified only after occurring. Also, where deaths have occurred, or information stolen or destroyed, they cannot be recovered. These cases also lead to financial losses for the university. Therefore, losses are experienced when these incidents take place. This study questions personnel of the HSU on ways they feel could be used to minimize the HSS incidents for their full productivity in their work. It applies a sample consisting of campus clinic staff, campus locksmiths, and campus security department to probe their methods of ensuring health of campus staff, their safety and security of all assets and resources on campus. The second phase of the empirical study shall include a survey of campus personnel in which the issue of HSS are probed, using a simple random sampling method from the campus personnel register.

Keywords:

Computers, death, diseases, health, risk, safety, security.