Nearly six years after its initial launch, the Ministry of Education is taking a major step forward for its flagship school safety initiative, expanding the Model Safe School Programme into secondary education with a pilot program launching this month at two selected institutions.
First introduced in 2018, the program has concentrated its efforts on primary school campuses up to this point. Currently, 15 specially trained safety agents are deployed across nine participating primary schools, bringing targeted safety support to younger student populations.
Rolston Nickeo, Education Officer for Schools Administration and the national focal point for the Safe Schools initiative, outlined the core mission of the program in an interview with Observer Radio. Unlike reactive safety frameworks that only address crises after they occur, the Model Safe School Programme is built around proactive risk mitigation, working with school communities to spot and reduce hazards before they escalate into full-blown emergencies.
The initiative is structured around four foundational pillars that shape all of its work: systematic risk identification across school grounds, comprehensive emergency preparedness planning, dedicated protection protocols for both students and staff, and targeted upgrades to create safer built infrastructure.
A key goal of the expansion, Nickeo explained, is to help shift the overall culture of school safety across the education system. Rather than only responding to critical incidents after they happen, the program empowers schools to build long-term prevention capacity and community resilience that can address emerging threats before they impact learning or student well-being.
Unlike traditional school staff roles, the safety agents deployed through the program are neither classroom teachers nor standard security guards. Their core responsibilities include conducting regular walkthroughs of school campuses to identify environmental hazards, building positive rapport with students to understand emerging safety concerns, and intervening early to de-escalate minor conflicts before they grow into more serious incidents.
To prepare them for these unique duties, all participating safety agents complete an intensive two-week induction training program. The curriculum covers critical practical skills including targeted conflict resolution strategies, trauma-informed child protection protocols, standardized incident reporting procedures, and foundational first aid training to respond to medical emergencies.
The upcoming pilot at two secondary schools is designed as a deliberate testing phase for the national expansion. Ministry officials will use data and feedback from the pilot to evaluate how the program’s existing framework, which was built for primary school settings, can be adapted to meet the unique safety needs of older adolescent students. Only after this assessment and any necessary adjustments will the Ministry roll out the program to secondary schools on a broader national scale.