Have fire drills in all religious schools, urges Zahid

All religious and Quran-memorising (Maahad Tahfiz) schools are urged to hold fire drills at least once every year to prevent incidents of fire.

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the fire drills must be conducted under the supervision of the Fire and Rescue Department (JBDP) to help religious education institutions boost their levels of safety and health.

He said the book on Occupational Safety and Health (KKP) guidebook for tahfiz schools 2018 which was published by the National Institute Of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) launched today must be used as a full guide in holding the fire drill.

“I hope the book is fully used in every Maahad Tahfiz nationwide. We do not want the launching to be merely ceremonial. It is our commitment which must always at the frontline via the NBOS (National Blue Ocean Strategy) shift without sidelining other education streams,” he said.

He said this in his speech when opening the national level KKP Management Seminar and the launching of the KKP 2018 book for tahfiz schools at Sekolah Menengah Agama (SMA) Irshadiah Addiniah here today.

Also present were deputy Human Resources Minister Ismail Abd Muttalib, NIOSH chairman Lee Lam Thye and NIOSH executive director Ayop Salleh.

The seminar was aimed at boosting understanding, appreciation and creating a safe and healthy culture when at school and its surrounding on a continuous basis with the support of the school, family and local community.

Ahmad Zahid, who is Bagan Datuk MP, said NIOSH had been given the responsibility to hold large scale awareness campaigns on KKP for tahfiz schools nationwide with the co-operation of the JBPM, local authorities and the National Quran Tahfiz Associations Coalition (National PINTA).

In fact, he said the initiative taken by the Human Resources Ministry to turn SMA Irshadiah Addiniah into an example of a school which adopted good KKP management because it could give ideas and the actual picture of how it could be implemented effectively.

Meanwhile, Ismail in his speech said NIOSH had trained 728,739 people via 31,720 programmes for numerous industries at the NIOSH headquarters and branches nationwide from 2011 to 2016.

- Bernama