Integrating Construction Job Hazard Analysis into Technical College Curriculum for Safer Construction Practices

The lack of adequate training and information on safer construction practices by technicians and artisans in the construction industry and their neglect to safe working procedures in Rivers State is alarming, the rise in cases of accidents and incidents in construction projects in Rivers State led to this work. The aim of the study was to determine Integrating Construction Job Hazard Analysis into Technical College Curriculum for Safer Construction Practices. Specifically, the study explored the importance of the task and environment components of construction job hazard analysis (CJHA) to be included into the curriculum of brick block laying and concreting for safer construction practices. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design and the population of the study was 46 respondents, comprising 30 Technical college Teachers and 16 Instructors from the four Government Technical Colleges in Rivers State. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled “Job Hazard Analysis Training Questionnaire”. The instrument was subjected to face and content validation by three experts. The internal consistency of the instrument was established using test-retest reliability method. With the aid of statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 22, a reliability coefficient of study was .77. Data collected from the respondents were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and t-test statistics were used to test the null hypotheses at .05 level of significance. Based on the data analyzed the following conclusions were drawn, that students should be trained to break down tasks into smaller activities or steps, while adopting best hazard control measures for each step of the said task promotes safer construction practices and that students should be trained to know work ergonomics, their working environment, environmental hazards to carry out their duties safely. It was recommended based on the findings of the study that CJHA be added to brick/blocklaying and concreting curriculum to better equip the students for the world of work, necessary funding be made for teachers and instructors to have required resources for effective instructions.