Abstract

Colourful playgrounds are made for the young children. But, aren’t they being provided for leisure or failure? This paper has conducted an assessment on the children’s playgrounds that located in the housing areas of apartments and terraces. Such study is ubiquitous in the developed world, however, in Malaysia this topic is neglected, the children’s playgrounds are presumed to be in good conditions because they were assessed at a distance. An observational survey was conducted on 57 children’s playgrounds in the playing areas of apartments and terrace housings scattered in several cities of West Peninsular Malaysia. The safety checklist and playground grading forms which were used as the main survey instruments was modified based on the original checklist from the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission and the grading system was adapted from the United States National Program for Playground Safety. The safety evaluations stressed on four elements; the surfacing materials, drainage, general hazards and equipment maintenance. The result, most of the playgrounds were struggled to comply with the safety checklists. Significant problems and faulty issues on equipment were composed in the form of graphical images to enhance the discussions. Half of the sampling population managed to get the minimum C grades and only to be rated as the average playgrounds. If Malaysia’s playgrounds are prioritized not on safety and neglecting their equipment maintenance, the number of failure playgrounds will surely increase and so does the playground accidents.

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