Survival swimming training to be launched in Kerala schools

For the first time in the country, a World Health Organisation-led (WHO) initiative to impart survival swimming training to children in order to reduce drowning deaths is taking off in the State.

The project, Turning the tide on drowning – a school SwimSafe (survival swim training for children) programme, is being piloted in two schools in the capital district by the George Institute for Global Health (India), a WHO collaborating centre on injury prevention, trauma care and head injury, with the cooperation of the State General Education department. The SwimSafe initiative is being funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trades, Australia.

Over the past five years, at least 1,000-1,200 people have died every year in the State by drowning, young children and adolescents constituting a significant percentage of this number.

Teaching swimming and water safety skills to school-age children in the 6-14 year age group is a strategy recommended by the WHO and proven to have reduced drowning incidence in many low-income countries like Bangladesh.

Though the General Education department has had plans since 2018 to include swimming as part of the school curriculum from primary classes, it never materialised because of logistics issues, funds shortage, and safety issues associated with using natural pools.

Two classrooms

It is estimated that Kerala loses two classrooms — about 80 school-going children — to drowning every year, says Jagnoor Jagnoor, project investigator for SwimSafe, George Institute For Global Health.

“Swimsafe will be piloted in the government UP schools at Ambalathara and Poojappura in Thiruvananthapuram. We plan to give swim lessons to a total of 300-350 children from both schools, with each child getting two one-hour sessions every week for six weeks. We have already selected four swimming instructors from the community and formally trained them according to our guidelines. We plan to maintain a teacher-student ratio of 1:6,” says Gloria Benny, George Institute, who is coordinating SwimSafe in schools.

Teaching swimming to children without appropriate safety measures can be dangerous. SwimSafe trains children (who do not have asthma, heart conditions, epilepsy or disabilities) to swim in clean, clear, shallow water with highly visible boundaries. Swimming is taught as one component of a formal programme, which includes water safety and safe rescue and knowledge and attitudes to water.

Portable pools

“We initially thought of using the local pools. However, because of the scare over amoebic meningoencephalitis, this idea was dropped. We will now be using portable pools (the dimensions being 31 ft x 14 ft x 4.33 ft ), so that there are no unknowns. We also need not take them out of the school premises,” Ms. Benny says.

SwimSafe teaches children the important precautions they should follow when entering water and the water environment awareness they should have when dealing with unfamiliar water bodies.

They are taught breathing skills, swimming skills, and two survival competencies (swim 25 metres using any recognisable stroke and to float for 30 seconds). They are also taught three basic rescue techniques.

The aim is to train children so that they are able to swim 25 metres and tread water for 30 seconds.

“Many young children may not achieve this skill level within the six weeks time frame but the basic swimming skills can always be improved. What is more important is the core knowledge and survival skills training that they receive on how they can keep themselves safe in water,” Ms. Benny says.

Trainers’ teaching was conducted by expert swimmers from the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) of Australia. Apart from the swimming coaches, two teachers from the schools who had basic swimming skills were also put through RLSS training.

SwimSafe is expected to be piloted in the first week of February.