School Safety and Sustainability Challenges

This assignment delves into the multifaceted challenges concerning school safety in the United Arab Emirates. It analyzes issues related to transportation safety, with a focus on compliant school buses, drawing attention to recent suspensions of after-school sports due to this concern. The assignment also explores broader themes of school violence and the impact of heteronormativity on gender nonconforming students. Furthermore, it investigates sustainability practices in UAE schools, considering factors like energy efficiency and waste management.

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Role of health and safety for sustainable business continuity- An assessment of private
schools in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Project title...........................................................................................................................2
Overview of the study..........................................................................................................2
Problem statement...........................................................................................................3
Rationale of the research.................................................................................................3
Research Question...........................................................................................................4
Research aim and objective.............................................................................................5
Research hypothesis.........................................................................................................5
Research methodology.....................................................................................................6
Related literatures................................................................................................................6
Importance of health and safety in schools......................................................................6
Importance of these in Abu Dhabi...................................................................................7
Strategies..........................................................................................................................8
Methodology of research.....................................................................................................8
Philosophy.......................................................................................................................8
Research approach...........................................................................................................9
Research design...............................................................................................................9
Data Collection method...................................................................................................9
Data analysis..................................................................................................................10

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Validity and reliability...................................................................................................10
Ethical consideration.....................................................................................................10
Outcome.............................................................................................................................10
Proposed structure of the study..........................................................................................11
Timescale...........................................................................................................................12
References..........................................................................................................................13

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Project title
Role of health and safety for sustainable business continuity- An assessment of private
schools in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Overview of the study
Health and safety is determined as one of the basic human rights and maintaining these
human rights is the responsibility of each of the administration that gathers one or more than one
individual for work or business purposes. Attention about good health and safety at workplace
not only makes the person socially aware, but also makes the administration human friendly as
maintaining its employees or people is as important as achievement of key objective (Gostin and
Sridhar 2014). According to UNICEF (2018), maintaining health and safety in schools is more
important as children spend more time in the care of strangers in schools, pre-schools and
vocational training centers except their home. Therefore, it is the duty of the care staff or
teachers of those institutes to provide all the health and safety measures to the children by
maintaining healthy and nurturing environment to promote the physical and educational
development. By maintaining such environment, the educational organization can also achieve a
sustainable growth as more and more parents will try to provide their children an environment
where their cognitive and physical development could be possible without any risk of health and
safety. Loeppke et al. (2015) conducted a research to understand the rate of health and safety
issues occurred in past few years across the United States of America and provided the benefits
of integrating these human rights in workplace. Integrating health and safety policy is a strategic
and systematic integration of health and safety laws into an organization and these policies are

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replicable and measureable and are able to prevent work related hazard and accidents and
illnesses.
Problem statement
Maintaining health and safety to achieve sustainable business continuity with respect to
schools in Abu Dhabi is important in this era of globalization, as the number of violence against
children has been increased in past decade. There are different form of violations occurring in
school nowadays and these incidences are violating the health and safety norms (Jones, Mitchell
and Finkelhor 2012). The effect of such violations are decreasing the trust of parents on the
business and therefore the sustainability of the school business has become the matter of concern
for thousands of private school owners. Further, researchers have also find the fact that the
absence of a proper health and safety guidelines for Asian schools have hampered the business
extensively. Hence, it is a problem for current school businesses, that are struggling for the
sustainability of their business (Hatherley-Greene 2012). According to the National Newspaper
of UAE, the schools of UAE are facing major loss due to lack of expert teachers, shortage of
staffs, leser technology than the global education system and shortage of suppliers (The National
2017). Therefore, a need of emergency management or business continuity management is
necessary for the private schools in Abu Dhabi. However, a proper business continuity
management for private schools is still not present and the schools are facing closure due to the
lack of a proper management planning (Bajgoric 2014). Further, one more issue related to health
and safety is the topic of discussion nowadays, which is hygiene and school vehicle related
accidents. Therefore, this research proposal will be discussing these issues in details in the
following sections (Jafari et al. 2015).

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Rationale of the research
The prime reason for choosing this issue for the research about health and safety aspects
with respect to school business sustainable continuity is increasing crimes and violation against
schoolchildren in Abu Dhabi. According to the data of UNICEF, several type of violations
violates the health and safety norms. Few of these violations are sexual and gender
discrimination, bullying, racial discrimination, fighting and physical assault due to which the
parents are losing hopes and trusts from the private school administrations (UNICEF 2018).
According to the UNICEF statistics, In UAE, 17 percent of girls and 25 percent boys have been
bullied in schools. On the other hand, 58 percent of school going boys have been indulged in
fights and physical violence in schools with respect to 39 percent girls (UNICEF 2018).
Therefore, the need of health and safety rules and extensively implementation of those rules has
become the need of the situation for the safety of the children as well as for those business
administrations, who want to run their school business smoothly.
This issue has become in this contemporary situation, as according to the Gulf business
news, thousands of private schools have to face closure and even more have to merge their
institution with the government administrations in last decade. This happened because the school
administration were unable to implement the health and safety norms properly as well as fee hike
was the secondary factor for the closure of those schools (Gulf Business 2014).
This study will focus on the importance of the health and safety norms in the private
schools of Abu Dhabi for the sustainable business continuity in UAE. Further, the study will
focus on the different business strategies that the private schools of Abu Dhabi should include to
attract more parents from the country to trust on them. Furthermore, the study will also include

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the way these strategies work to attract those parents who are not willing to admit their children
in such schools. A timeline and evaluation strategy will also be included in the research proposal.
Research Question
The research question framed for this study is:
RQ: What strategy about the health and safety the school administrations should implement so
that a sustainable business continuity can be achieved?
Research aim and objective
The aim of this research is to find out the way the strategic business model including the
health and safety norms helps to attract more and more students in their schools. Further, this
study will aim to understand the various factors that directly or indirectly influence the growth
and decrease in the business of such schools (Jasper, Le and Bartram 2012). The study will
completely focus on the sustainable business continuity in Abu Dhabi of UAE.
The research objectives are as follows:
i. To understand the effect of health and safety norms in schools for better business
development.
ii. To examine the strategies that can be implemented by the school authorities for
the sustainable growth
iii. To find out how the health and safety norms are being able to attract more
students in their institute for the sustainable business continuity in other countries.
iv. To recommend a number of better strategies, which the school authorities could
utilize for such sustainable growth.

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Research hypothesis
The null and alternate hypothesis for this research are:
H0: The strategies undertaken by the school authorities regarding the health and safety
law do not help them to achieve a sustainable business growth.
H1: The strategies undertaken by the school authorities regarding the health and safety
law helped them to achieve a sustainable business growth continuity.
Related literatures
Importance of health and safety in schools
Over the past few decades, the violence against children has been increased extensively.
From developed to developing countries, the entire world is facing problems regarding the
children abuses and violence against children and the maximum of such violence has been
reported in schools, especially private schools. According to Thapa et al. (2013), a secure and
positive environment in schools helps to foster cognitive and learning skills and physical
development, which is important for the productive, and contributive social life. The researchers
identified that few of the schools in the United States applied few health and safety related norms
that made the school environment physically and socially safe. Further, these safety aspects
helped the school authorities to gain suitable business growth. Another researcher Toomey,
McGuire and Russell (2012), undertaken multilevel modelling technique to conduct a survey for
the Examination of school strategies to promote safety in schools. They conducted the survey
with 1415 students of 25 high schools. The pool of students had bisexual, Latino youth and
students who faced gender disparity in past. The result of the survey indicated that few of those

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schools did not had any safety and health related norms that increased the rate of bullying and
physical violence in them. Another group of researchers trying to review the health and safety
law of Department of Pediatrics (Britain), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (USA),
Department of Pediatric, Columbia and to understand the role of these norms in the injury
prevention. Finally, it was observed that the rate of admission of students was higher in those
schools, which implemented the health and safety norms in their institution properly (Brussoni et
al. 2012). The other factors that affected the sustainable business of schools worldwide is focus
on hygiene and acquiring safety measured for school vehicles. According to the research of Lau
et al. (2012), they surveyed the importance of hygiene for the students, their cognitive
development and their performance in studies and divided the schoolchildren (n=773) into two
groups one with intervention and another as control. After the completion of academic year
2009/10 they collected the data and it was found that the control group reported 1886 absence
and within that 16% parents discontinued their children’s education from that school. Therefore,
hygiene has important role in the sustainability of school business and a continuity plan should
be prepared to combat or mitigate the effect of lack of hygiene in school premise. Further,
another factor that helps the schools to achieve sustainable development by implementing safety
of school vehicles. According to the global road safety data, everyday 98000 school children die
due to school bus elated accidents worldwide and therefore implementation of school bus safety
norms will help to rebuild the trust of parents on the schools (World Health Organization 2015).
Singapore has implemented road safety norms within their school system so that they can
achieve parents trust and lead their institutes towards a sustainable development (Haque, Chin
and Debnath 2013).

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Importance of these in Abu Dhabi
The government of UAE is strict about the implementation of the health and safety norms
related to employees and schools children throughout the entire country. The Ministry of Interior
(MOI) has set up few rules to implement child protection and cultural safety environment at
schools. Further they have set up code of conduct rules for teachers, banned the physical
punishment rules and have provided the safe transportation (Government.ae 2017). On the Other
hand, for the health protection, the government has set up health promotional camps in schools
so that the parents and teachers can properly take care of the health of children (Government.ae
2017). However, in last few decade, the school administrations are facing loss due lack in health
and safety policy and fees hike. One example of such incidence was published in The national
newspaper, according to which, two schools Cranleigh Abu Dhabi and The British School Al
Khubairat was issued letters as they will not be able to participate in the Abu Dhabi International
School Sports Association (ADISSA) because the schools did not had enough school buses (The
National 2017). The newspaper provided few past incidences in which lack of safety norms was
the reason a three-year-old girl died in the school as the school bus forget to pick her up, in 2015.
In another incidence, a three-year-old kid died in the locked school bus (The National 2017).
Another factor associated with health and safety is security of the students until they
reach their home. According to the data of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) USA, from 2006 to 2015, almost 0.4 percent or 1172 schoolchildren died due to road
accidents and they were travelling in a school bus. The maximum of the students belong to age
group 14-18 years (NHTSA 2018). It should be noted that the USA has its own school bus
related laws and the entire school owners have to follow those laws strictly, in spite of which
there are 0.4 percent of children, who died in road accidents (Mongan and Walker 2012).

10RESEARCH PROPOSAL
According to the national newspaper, more than 220,000 pupils travel every day to reach more
than 780 schools however; the behavior of maximum of the driver is not compliance with the
traffic rules of UAE (The National 2015). Therefore, a proper safety guideline for the security of
school pupils in school buses is the need of UAE and Abu Dhabi currently.
Strategies
The strategies that are being implemented by the private schools of Abu Dhabi to
maintain the health and safety norm by the UAE government was mentioned in national new
paper articles, The Khaleej Times (2016) published that few of the private schools implemented
the safety rules by installing CCTV cameras throughout their school campus and school vehicles.
Further, private schools under the governmental pressure hired extra school buses and after
proper verification employed a school bus guard for the safety purpose of children inside school
vehicle. Example of such school is the Raha international School.
Methodology of research
Philosophy
There are research philosophies related to the topic of the study, positivism, realism and
interpretivism. The positivism theory helps to understand the problem and helps in in-depth
analysis and the interpretivism helps to develop a business management model. The third
approach, realism is the mixture of these two (Mackey and Gass 2015). For this research, the
positivism theory will be implemented as it helps to investigate logically and critically. As the
research is objective and interaction with the participants are minimal, therefore the research is
going to be undertaken in positivism approach (Petty, Thomson and Stew 2012).

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Research approach
There are two research approaches, deductive and inductive research approach. The
deductive approach evaluates the topic using existing theories and models and the inductive
research utilizes new method and study (Maxwell 2012). In this particular research, the
deductive approach has been selected. The already existing models and informations about the
topic will be used as developing new data and theories is not feasible, the inductive model will
be rejected (Mackey and Gass 2015).
Research design
There are three type of research design such as analytical, explanatory and exploratory
research design. The analytical approach provides a detailed approach about the research study,
whereas the exploratory study helps to evaluate the study in the initial stages of the research
(Lewis 2015). The explanatory design helps to provide the relationship between the two
variables of the research study. In this research study, the analytical design has been chosen, as it
will provide a detailed analysis of the concepts and theories of the research topic (Flick 2015).
Data Collection method
The results of this study is dependent on the secondary data and therefore the data
collection method will also depend on the secondary data. Different journals, books and
newspaper articles will be used to find out data about health and safety in private schools of Abu
Dhabi for the continuous and sustainable business development. Further summary of that
research will be used in the data collection method (Panneerselvam 2014).

12RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Data analysis
The data collected from the secondary resources will be evaluated using the thematic
approach. For that, all the data will be converted to themes and further the themes will be
evaluated accordingly. All themes will be incorporate one research question and these themes
will help in examining the recording pattern within the data (Palinkas et al. 2015).
Validity and reliability
Validity of the research depends on the accuracy of the test and data collection. On the
other hand, reliability is the ability of the research data to produce stable and dependable results.
It is very important for any research study to be valid and reliable (Wiek and Lang 2016).
Ethical consideration
For the successful completion of the research study, it is important for the study to be
ethically compatible. As the research will be using secondary data and data collection method,
the research work should be properly cited to avoid plagiarism (Gale et al. 2014). It should be
kept in mid that the research is for the academic purpose and therefore no promotional or
advertisement content should be present within the study. Hence, these points should be strictly
followed to conduct an ethically compatible research study (VanPatten and Williams 2014).
Outcome
The research is using the secondary data, and will be utilizing those data to understand
the effect of health and safety norms for the sustainable business development in case of schools
of Abu Dhabi. Therefore, outcome of the research might have newer ideas about the different
institutions of the world that have utilized the health and safety norms to achieve a sustainable

13RESEARCH PROPOSAL
business continuity. Their strategies to make their institute reliable and trusted by the parents will
be discovered and how those outcome scan change the state of schools in Abu Dhabi will be
understood. Further, the outcomes will provide a complete set of recommendations as the study
will have theories and data from around the world. Those recommendations will help to obtain
the answer to the research question.
Timescale
Activities 1st year 1st and 2nd year 2nd year 3rd year
Topic selection
Searching
secondary
articles and data
collection
Creating layout
Literature review
Interpretation of
the collected data
Findings of the
data
Conclusion of the
study
Submission of the
final work
Table of the timescale for the research
(Source: Created by the author)

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