Students and teachers are concerned about security management on Chinese campuses and are calling for more training and exercises after several reports of serious fires.

About 72.1 percent of respondents in an online survey were not satisfied with security facilities on campus, according to yesterday's China Youth Daily.

More than half of them complained about old facilities and 47.7 percent said the emergency exits were not accessible.

About 77.5 percent wanted contingency response training and 82.7 percent said they would welcome contingency exercises, the report said.

More than 1,000 respondents took part in the survey, which began on November 20 at Sina.com.cn, six days after four female students jumped to death when their dormitory caught fire in a Shanghai college.

A day after the Shanghai fire, a laboratory at the Beijing-based China Agricultural University caught fire and the fire alarm on the campus failed. No casualties were reported.

Although shocked by what the Shanghai girls did, Lin Yang, studying at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in central Hubei Province, admitted that he did not know how to use a fire extinguisher.

"All I can think of is to cover my nose and mouth with wet towels," he said.

Like Lin, 54.2 percent of those surveyed did not know how to use fire extinguishers, and 70.8 percent did not receive any fire safety training.

Professor Zhang Rui, of the physical education department at Peking University, said casualties could be avoided if students were well trained.

He cited a school principal in southwest China's Sichuan Province who organized regular contingency exercises for earthquakes. His school managed to evacuate all the students and staff safely when the 8.0 magnitude-earthquake hit the area on May 12.

But, Yi Siting from Beijing-based Renmin University worried that training programs might become boring. Teng Wuxiao, director of the urban public security research center in Shanghai's Fudan University, said the duties of those responsible for safety should be clarified.

(Xinhua News Agency December 4, 2008)