Shanghai parents are being urged to educate their children on how to tackle emergencies at home, after a new survey showed most children lacked the knowledge.

The survey, by the Zhabei District Women's Federation and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, sampled 290 students aged between six and 17 at schools in the district.

The survey found 31 percent of parents had not taught their children how to deal with electricity blackouts at home, while 28.4 percent of families did not teach children how to escape a fire.

More than 50 percent of parents said they should be responsible for education about safety at home.

Meanwhile, most parents thought the best way to solve safety problems was to arrange more activities for their children during the summer vacation. The response came as the survey found nearly 30 percent of the sampled children said they were staying at home alone most of the time.

About 68.3 percent of parents have already planned for the summer, including encouraging children to take part in sports activities and go out for tours, while 63.1 percent have enrolled them in summer courses.

Although 60 percent of students said they would surf the Internet online during the summer vacation, more than half of the parents did not regulate the time children spent on their computer each day.

(Shanghai Daily June 24, 2008)