Education authorities in north China's Shanxi Province have urged local primary and middle schools to strengthen safety education to secure the safety and health of students.

A circular on strengthening safety and management in primary and middle schools in Shanxi Province was issued by the provincial education bureau on Wednesday, asking local schools to create regular courses on safety knowledge so as to prevent accidents on campus.

"Taking into account students' age and cognitive ability, schools should impart safety knowledge to students through various means, including lectures, panel discussions, seminars, contests of safety knowledge, mock accidents and rescue exercises," says the circular.

Local schools are also required to conduct tailored safety education at the beginning of every new semester.

The circular comes in the wake of a disastrous traffic accident last week that killed 20 students and one teacher of the No. 2 Middle School of Qinyuan County in western Shanxi province. The accident occurred when a large truck rushed into more than 900 students of the school who were running along a highway near their school in the early morning of November 14. Driving fatigue was identified as the cause of the accident.

The circular also requires local schools to cooperate with local public security departments to establish traffic warning signs on sections of highways near schools and kindergartens.

The circular prohibits schools from organizing students to do exercises on major urban streets and highways and demands that schools apply for approval from higher authorities to organize activities involving large numbers of students.

The circular also urged local schools not to use hazardous school buildings and teaching equipment and to do regular check-ups of school buildings and facilities.

Some educators hailed Shanxi's new emphasis on safety in educational practices, saying it could to some degree step up safety management in primary and middle schools and curb the occurrence of accidents threatening the security of students and teachers.

"The long-term omission of safety education is the main reason behind campus accidents," said Professor Wang Taiyuan with the Chinese People's University of Public Security, noting that safety education still remains underdeveloped in classrooms in most schools.

"Risks are everywhere, in and out of the classroom, and on the way to school and back home," Wang said.

In this sense, Wang said, safety education covers a wide range of topics, including on-campus safety, off-campus safety, health care, dietary hygiene, traffic safety and reaction to natural disasters.

"Shanxi has taken the lead among the country in starting safety education courses in primary and middle schools in China, which demonstrated that the provincial government is trying to make up the absence of safety education in schools," said Professor Yue Qianhou with Shanxi University, based in Taiyuan, the provincial capital.

China in 1996 established the last Monday of March every year as the national day for educating students with safety knowledge. Many Chinese cities have also worked out regulations to strengthen safety management on campus.

But the recent campus accidents across China have raised alarms that not enough is being done.

A stairway stampede last month at a primary school killed seven children and injured 37. The accident occurred as the children swarmed out of evening classes at a school in the mainly agricultural western province of Sichuan.

Other safety accidents also include a mud-rock flow in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, which killed 105 primary school students. Also, nearly 3,000 students were poisoned by bean milk in northeast China's Liaoning province.

A joint probe by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Public Security in ten provinces and municipalities, including Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai, showed that more than 40 students are killed by food poisoning, traffic and other safety accidents across China everyday.

The same survey also revealed that nearly 80 percent of the deaths could be have been avoided through preventive measures and emergency treatment.

"Primary and middle schools should also teach students how to escape a fire and how to protect themselves in various unexpected accidents and natural disasters," said Professor Jia Xinguang with Beijing Normal University.

In light of the recent accident in Shanxi, the Ministry of Education also issued a circular recently ordering educational authorities of various levels and schools across China to take efficient measures to root out the risk of such accidents and to protect the security and health of students and teachers.

Educationalists in China have also called for drafting a law on campus safety to ensure the safety of teachers and students.

(Xinhua News Agency November 28, 2005)