Risk prevention and student safety protection

2023/11/23 Type of resource European laws National law Topics Health Safety Titles Focus areas Activities Legal review
Cover La prevenzione del rischio nelle scuole e la tutela della sicurezza e della salute degli studenti

Risk prevention in schools and student safety protection

Being able to feel safe in any environment is a basic need that goes along with both the promotion of a culture of risk prevention and the implementation of preventive and protective measures in the places one regularly is, including schools.

Health, well-being and safety are substantial aspects of everyday life, and school activity offers important insights into them.

In Europe, until the first half of the 1980s there was no legislation dedicated to the subject of health and safety in the workplace. The first important change occurred in 1987 with the enactment of the Single European Act. The provisions of this were then officially incorporated in the Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997.

If, at a European level, the benchmark is the framework directive of 12 June 1989, 89/391/EEC, ‘On the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work’- 'Framework Directive', which aims to establish a fair level of health and safety for all workers in the public sector, in Italy the legislative benchmark  is the Legislative Decree No. 81 of 9 April 2008, Implementation of Article 1 of Law no. 123 of 3 August 2007, on the protection of health and safety in the workplace. In recent years, numerous decrees have been issued, especially by the Ministry of Education, aimed at protecting the health and safety of students within school facilities, with particular attention to disabled students.

Attached is a legislative overview on the topic of Risk prevention in schools and student safety protection.