Education matters

AS you will remember, in May last year a coward blew up a homemade bomb at a pop concert for little girls and their families in Manchester. 

As a result of this, the UK government is currently proposing that children in both primary and secondary school should learn first aid, or at least what to do in the first seconds and minutes after accidents occur, in a bid to reduce fatalities and increase survival rates.

The proposals are based on evidence from countries in which first aid is taught which have seen an increase in survival rates of up to three per cent where children and young adults have applied the skills learned.

They are also based on accounts from survivors and health professionals from the night of the Manchester Arena attack that said that even though people were willing to help, they generally didn’t know what to do to help the dying or injured around them.

I think that the message this announcement sends demonstrates both positivity and responsibility and I only hope that when it is rolled out, it doesn’t become another burden on already stretched schools and that the strategy for implementing is well thought out and practical as it comes from an honourable place.

As I read this news it got me thinking about schools in Bahrain and what steps they are taking to ensure that their children are well equipped to contribute to the world.

This kind of strategy addresses a child’s personal, social and health education yet since this is not a curricular subject, or perhaps more importantly for school owners, an assessable subject, the chances of it being made compulsory are quite limited.

This is a shame. In an island nation, you would hope that schools are at the very least making their children aware of the dangers and risks of swimming in the sea or unsupervised in a pool and what to do should somebody get into difficulty. But of course, they aren’t, so it comes down to individual school teachers and leaders who recognise the importance of these life skills to push and push until, maybe, something happens.

I often write about being wise after an event and how learning from tragedies seems to go over the heads of many of the decision-makers in education, but whilst no one can predict when an event might occur, prevention is always better than cure and, as such, it seems that educating children in life skills such as first aid could actually be a selling point for schools.

Imagine if a school brochure said: ‘If you send your child to our school, not only will they have the chance to complete courses that will give them access to universities around the world, they will also be equipped with the life skills required for them to make an active contribution to the world as well’.

Now that would be a selling point, however it seems that whilst many private schools in Bahrain sell themselves through the British curricula that they offer, that’s where any similarity with English schools ends … and that is an enormous shame.