Safety management in professional and technological teaching: case study of a school

This work focuses on the personal and/or collective management of accident risks in a professional and technological education establishment. It was carried out on the request of the technical education delegate of the training department of INRS and involved studying the ability of the students to assess and master risks.
Expanding this question to the overall management of safety within the establishment, we firstly examine the administrative management of accidents occurring on the machine tools, and collect the views of the lecturers on how safety is taken into account in reality in this school. We then go on to focus our investigation on a 5th year class of 14 students preparing the French "baccalauréat" in mechanical production. Over the course of individual interviews, we cover the accident risks that they are exposed to while working on the machine tools, as well as the existing means of prevention intended to protect them. Finally, a situation of operating a numerically controlled lathe is analysed, in other words the complete operation ranging from programming through to machining an item carried out individually in the workshop of the school.

Globally, account taken of the numbers involved in the survey, the essentially qualitative results reveal that prevention is not high on the priority list of the lecturers interviewed. Moreover, this observation is not unique to the teaching profession, but has more to do with the subject itself. Nevertheless, there was evidence of individuals having been willing to promote safety but who had been discouraged by the lack of institutional recognition, available help, and budget.
Regarding the students, they quote few risks spontaneously, and would appear to have an individual perception of both accident risks and the means of prevention on the machine tools. Furthermore, they put the risks into perspective by comparing the school with the firm where they had completed the work experience part of the course. Moreover, the analysis of operating situations on the numerically controlled machine tools shows, particularly with respect to incident recuperation, the problem solving behaviour in real time as being on a "one off" basis. This type of behaviour indicates relatively low levels of incident anticipation which, as is well known, is at odds with a prevention strategy.