Fire safety compliance of private tahfiz schools in Selangor

Abstract

The expanding numbers of Tahfiz schools in Malaysia were due to emergent public demand and pursuing the target of producing 125,000 professional huffaz in the year 2050 as stated in the Malaysian Tahfiz Education Policy. However, 40% of Tahfiz schools nationwide fail to comply with the minimum fire safety regulation in the inspection held by the Tahfiz task force. Nevertheless, the arising crisis of fire trend in Tahfiz schools has limited the benefits of fire safety regulation among them. As such, the objectives of this study are to identify the cause of fire safety issues and evaluate the level of fire safety measures in Tahfiz schools based on the requirement under the Selangor Uniform Building By-Laws (1986). A semi-open interview and structured observation were adopted to analyse the issues in the selected Tahfiz schools. Among the fire safety issues that were identified are a lack of fire safety regulation knowledge, governance issues and low fire safety awareness. The finding of this study recommends an improvement towards the aspect of Tahfiz schools establishment, fire safety compliance and education towards fire safety. The study concludes that a proactive collaboration among the relevant stakeholders is essential to encourage fire safety regulation compliance in the establishment of Tahfiz schools.