In recent years, it has become common practice to use ID cards in educational facilities such as schools, colleges and universities but there are still a fair few education establishments across the UK not using ID cards as a security measure.
Authoritative members of staff in educational organisations have a duty of care for the students, staff and visitors and by not being proactive in your security measures their safety on site could be jeopardised, so what are the risks of not using photo ID cards in schools?
Risk 1: Unwanted Visitors on Site
The biggest risk of not using ID cards in educational establishments is definitely security. By having no measures in place to identify who is and isn’t allowed to be on site, you really have no way of tracking who’s in the building and whether they’re supposed to be there.
By allocating each student and member of staff with a photo ID card and lanyard that they must wear at all times, as well as enforcing that visitors sign in and get a visitors ID card upon arrival, you then have a visual aid to help you be aware of people that could be on the site that shouldn’t be.
College and university campuses, in particular, can be extremely large with multiple entrances and exit points and although many of these facilities have security personnel in place to monitor where individuals enter and leave the site, human error can occur allowing people to access the building when they shouldn’t.
Whether you have simple photo ID cards or up the technology and opt for access control cards to make your building even more closed off to unwanted guests, adding ID cards into the daily running of your facility will undoubtedly increase security.
Risk 2: Confusion Between Staff, Students and Visitors
If nobody wears an ID card in an educational establishment but everyone is wearing their own clothes, it can become very easy to confuse staff, students and visitors, not knowing which category each individual falls into.
Not knowing who is staff or student and who is a visitor can also have a negative impact on the visitors’ experience of the establishment. If visitors cannot easily be identified amongst regular site go-ers such as staff or students, they can get lost in the crowd and therefore not be guided and supported to make the most of their time in the facilities.
Having separate styles of ID cards and coloured plain lanyards for staff, student and visitors allows each group of people to be easily identified and therefore treated accordingly.
Risk 3: Poor Attendance and Punctuality
Students spend a lot of time around their school or college when not in lessons but if they can’t be identified as a student, how can staff ever know if a student is late or simply not going to class?
Not all students will knowingly be late to a lesson or just decide to not attend but if students have ID cards with their photo and name on, you can identify them as a student, question their schedule for the day, what they’re doing out of class and even check the student on in-house systems as you can easily get their names.
Student ID cards offer the same helping hand with all discipline within schools: back in the days when students simply never had ID cards within the school building, it wasn’t unheard of to give fake names for detention forms or other punishments and staff members unfamiliar with the students would be none the wiser but ID cards stop this being able to happen, therefore making your school or college’s disciplinary procedures more effective.
So, if you’re in charge of the security and on-site safety for your educational facility, you could be allowing serious and easily avoidable risks to take place by not enforcing ID cards but don’t worry, you can start the process of creating your own ID cards with us today.
Whether you want to print yourself on site or let the professionals do it, you’ll find everything you need to create your ID cards here and all the expert advice for rolling out your new scheme across your establishment, so what are you waiting for?
Get in touch with one of our education team today by calling 0800 988 2095.