Knowledge of pupils of upper primary schools in the field of protection of population in South Bohemian region

Lives of each of us may bring unexpected situations, such as natural disasters, accidents involving release of hazardous substances or extensive traffic accidents. Statutory regulations and organizational measures taken by the state serve to mitigate the consequences of such emergencies. One of the tasks of the state is to protect the society, which also involves protection of population. Citizens themselves can contribute to the mitigation of the consequences of emergencies. Therefore, it is important to educate the citizens in this regard for them to be able react adequately. As part of the training of the population it is important to inculcate children from their early age with the basic rules of protection and help. Thus the issues of protecting people in emergencies are part of framework educational programmes for preschool, elementary as well as secondary education. It is the issues of protection of population that the theoretical part of this thesis deals with. The introduction describes protection of population from a historical perspective. It subsequently describes the current situation not only in the Czech Republic but it also briefly describes the context of the European Union and the political-military organization NATO. The thesis also describes the system of education in the sphere of protection of population at elementary schools. An integral component of the theoretical part is a chapter dealing with the integrated rescue system. The theoretical part is concluded with a chapter on statistical methods. The objective of the thesis was to find out about the level of knowledge of pupils in the 6th and 9th grades in the sphere of protection of population at selected schools in the South Bohemia region and to compare, subsequently, the knowledge of these pupils using the methods of descriptive and mathematical statistics. The following hypothesis was formulated for this thesis: 'Pupils on the 9th grade of elementary schools in the South Bohemia region have significantly better knowledge in the sphere of protection of population than 6th-grade pupils.' To achieve the defined objectives and to test the hypothesis, it was necessary to create a questionnaire focusing on the issue and to carry out a survey. The research group consisted of 100 pupils from 6th-grade classes and 100 pupils from 9th-grade classes at eight elementary schools in the South Bohemia region. The questionnaire submitted to the pupils included 15 questions. The questions in which the pupils showed a lack of knowledge mainly included questions focused on first aid. Evaluation of the questions shows that only 25 % of the pupils surveyed know what the frequency of chest compressions during resuscitation of an adult is and that 54 % of the pupils know how to behave in a situation where somebody is a victim of a high-voltage electric shock. Another problem area is the knowledge of signals. Only 51 % of the respondents know the signal for 'General Warning' and know what to do in the event this signal is sounded. The signal of 'Acoustic Siren Test' is known by only 21 % of them. In contrast, the issues in which pupils showed a good knowledge include, for instance, emergency telephone numbers (85 % of correct answers), integrated rescue system (87 % of correct answers) or evacuation (86 % of correct answers). Overall, the 6th-grade pupils answered all the questions correctly in 52.9 % of cases; it was 58 % in the 9th-grade pupils. The selected hypothesis was tested and confirmed using the methods of descriptive and mathematical statistics. The processed data is presented in the 'Results' chapter and it is subsequently evaluated in the 'Discussion' chapter. The benefit of this thesis is in an obtained image of knowledge in the sphere of protection of population shown by pupils of elementary schools. The outputs of the thesis have been provided to the participating schools