25 School Safety and Disaster Resilience

Dr. Lubna Siddiqui

epgp books

 

 

 Objectives

  • To understand the concept of school safety
  • To understand the linkages between school safety and disaster resilience
  • To acquaint different components of school safety
  • To gain a detailed understanding of the national school safety programme

    Rationale

 

To build a resilient society, community preparedness is an important pre-requisite. Educational institutions are the place where future citizens of the country are moulded and guided to become a better human being. Apart from home, children spend most of their time in schools. Thus, it is necessary that a school must be safe and resilient to hazard. A safe school can go on to become foundation block for a disaster resilient society.

 

Module 25. School Safety and Disaster Resilience

 

Learning Objective

 

School Safety

 

    In the current socio economic and environmental scenario, children face different risks ranging from death, injuries and diseases due to hazard vulnerability. Around 2.3 billion children currently live throughout the world, amongst them half a billion live in extremely high flood vulnerable zones and nearly 160 million in drought or extremely high drought severity zones.(Child-centred Disaster Risk Reduction, 2016) Developmental issues such as poor access to water and sanitation, poverty, nutritional deficiencies etc. exacerbate the risks. Long-term effects of disasters such as psychological trauma, displacement, disruption of education during the developmental years greatly increasethe vulnerability of children. Thus, in developing countries where government is functional and working towards welfare of the society,various measures are being implemented to minimise the risk of children.

 

Providing safe schooling facilities is one of the principal components to minimize risks for children. “School Safety has been defined as the creation of safe environments for children starting from their homes to their schools and back. This includes safety from large-scale ‘natural’ hazards of geological/climatic origin, human-made risks, pandemics, violence, as well as more frequent and smaller-scale risks like fires, road accidents and other emergencies, and environmental threats that can adversely affect the lives of children.” (Ahmedabad Action Agenda for School Safety, 2007)

 

Schools help children in their critical years of development. They create a safe space and creative environment to nurture the talent of children . It is indispensable for effective teaching and learning. It adds human capital in the country’s economy. Hence, schools are considered as critical infrastructures and , therefore, safety of critical infrastructures is an essential component. In recent past tragedies like Mandi Dabwali (1995) and Kumbhkonam (2004) fire incident, Bhuj Earthquake (2001) etc. resulted in death of many school children. The Fire in Dabwali Haryana during the prize distribution ceremony led to the death of about 200 children.In Bhuj earthquake, 2001, 31 teachers and 971 students were reported dead while 95 teachers and 1051 students were injured. Formal education was disrupted for longer period as several buildings were damaged and declared unfit for use. Post 2004 tsunami, a similar scenario was reported where many of the school children were deprived of education for a long duration after the tsunami due to the lack of schooling infrastructure. Thus school safety is a crucial component in developing disaster resilience. Programme strategies should inform, pursue and integrate the issue of safety in order to create safer schools.

 

School Safety and Disaster resilience

 

Resilience as concept has different understanding in different disciplines; it is a complex and multi-faceted concept. IFRC in their World Disaster Report of 2004, define resilience as “The capacity to survive, adapt and recover from a natural disaster. Resilience relies on understanding the nature of possible disasters and taking to steps reduce risk before an event as well as providing for a quick recovery when a natural disaster occurs. These activities necessitate institutionalized planning and response networks to minimize diminished productivity, devastating losses and decreased quality of life in the event of a disaster”. Resilience also comprise behavioural level factors concerned with encouraging the sustained adoption of preparatory adjustments and the ability to respond and adapt to adverse hazard effects. (Paton, 2006) Thus, the idea of resilience offers a strategy for promoting effective disaster readiness and response. Some of the common elements identified in the concept of resilience include Communication, Learning and Adaptation, Risk Awareness, Trust and Social cohesion (capital), good governance, adequate planning and preparation, redundancy of critical systems, regional economic capacity and economic diversification and lastly, state of the population’s underlying physical and mental health(Castleden, Mckee, Murray, & Leonardi, 2011).

 

Resilience strategies put “greater emphasis on what communities can do for themselves and how strengthen their capacities”. (Twigg, 2009)It facilitates community members’ commitment to reduction and readiness activities which benefits community in terms of hazard reduction and readiness activities.

 

Sendai Framework (SFDRR) and School Safety

 

School safety as resilience strategy helps in sustained adoption to respond and adapt to hazard through different sets of activities. Recognizing the critical role that schools play, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) identifies as priority “Investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience”. It states that, “To strengthen, as appropriate, disaster-resilient public and private investment, particularly through structural, non-structural and functional disaster risk prevention and reduction measures in critical facilities, in particular schools and hospitals and physical infrastructures; building better from the start to withstand hazards to proper design constructions, including the use of principles of universal design and the standardization of building materials; retrofitting and rebuilding; nurturing a cultural of maintenance; and taking into account economic, social, structural, technological and environmental impact assessments”(Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, 2015).

 

Disaster Education for Strengthening Resilience

 

“Disaster Awareness through Education” is the best way for making a safe and disaster resilient society. School is considered as an important instrument to provide knowledge and reduce disaster risk though awareness, innovation and education. Teachers and students play crucial roles in the development of a culture of prevention and preparedness, because knowledge and skill seeps to family and community through them. Thus, school safety programmes play a pivotal role in providing risk knowledge, generating awareness and developing capacity.

 

A child is influenced indirectly by connections such as family members, teachers and others. Developmental resilience theory emphasizes that adaptive human development within and across the system is characterized by both community and change. Schools are assigned the specific task to develop human capital, particularly in terms of knowledge, cognition and self-regulation function in the society (Masten & Obradovic, 2008). Thus, school is an ideal place to impart the knowledge of disaster preparedness and to inculcate disaster resilience in the society.

 

      Figure 1 Interaction of child with outside world

Source: (Etkin, 2016)

 

As illustrated in figure 1, a child interacts with school, family and peer group and learns many things from them. To start disaster preparedness from grassroots or from bottom to top approach, there is no better place than school.

 

School Safety Programme plays crucial part in ensuring continuity by imparting disaster preparedness through non-structural measures. This includes providing regular mock drills, simulation of disasters and awareness generation among students.When equipped with actionable knowledge, children can take care of their well-being in time of crisis and assist others, which in turn will reduce the vulnerability of children to a certain extent. Knowledge provided to teachers and non-teaching staff will help them better assist students in times of crisis. Being the first responders, they can significantly reduce the extent of loss post disasters when imparted with adequate and practical knowledge.

 

School Safety in Safeguarding Child Rights

 

A disaster strikes the community or society thereby collapsing the entire educational system for indefinite time period. Due to further threats of disaster occurrence with associated vulnerabilities, most of the children prefer to stay back in their homes or shelters and gradually they lose showing interest in going to schools. Even after disasters, damaged and collapsed school building are deemed unfit for use and resuming education gets delayed indefinitely. This indirectly violates the Right to education of children. Providing a safe schooling environment, faster resuming of classes and easy access even in hazard months will ensure greater success of education missions. School safety programmes implement this vision effectively.

 

School Safety is also a very practical way to achieve resilience, as schools or educational institutions play an important role in a child’s life and influences it in a way that no other can do. In broader terms school safety is linked to protection of human rights. No society should tolerate the necessity to choose between safety of the lives of children and their education. The right to life and right to education are both recognized human right and both should be complied and protected at the same time. Structural measures such as retrofitting school building, sends safety message to significant proportion of the community whether they have school going children or not. Through this individuals are encouraged to act upon their physical vulnerabilities. School serves as a community centre to propagate safety message. Thus school safety not only protects children from different hazards but also educate a community to protect themselves (Wiser, et al., 2004).

 

Multidimensional impact of School Safety Programme

 

In the aftermath of any disaster, many children go through a phase of psychological trauma and stress. In such a scenario, schools can provide children a safe heaven and help them recover faster. In the school premises, adequate nutrition and WASH facilities can be arranged for the sheltered children while providing them adequate psycho-social support. Schools also offer a neutral location for relief distribution, providing first aid, setting up makeshift vaccination centers and temporary shelters etc. This was observed during Bhuj earthquake when the district administration functioned in school campus for several weeks after the disaster. Thus, school safety is an essential component in not only mitigating and preparing for hazards but also in delivering response functions.

 

Thus, School Safety essentially aims to promote a culture of safety not only in school , but also in the society. Sensitization of children and school communities towards disaster preparedness and safety measures eventually lead to building disaster resilience in a larger scale. Active participation of stakeholders in school safety activities will nurture the resilience in all strata of the community. Schools being an agency which foster children and prepares them for the challenges of outside world, disaster resilience need to go hand in hand with regular schooling.

 

Developing a School Safety Programme

 

The basic goal of school safety programme is to promote a culture of disaster safety and contribute in the development of a disaster resilient society. A comprehensive school safety programme includes structural as well as non-structural measures. Structural measures refer to the safety of the building, construction of the building according to building codes, incorporating designs to safeguard hazard present in the concerned area. Non-structural measures refer to awareness generation, developing school disaster management plan, capacity building of students and teachers, regular rehearsals and mock drills etc. The key components of developing a school safety programme are as under:

 

a. Identification of Hazards

 

Some hazards may follow temporal pattern occurring at regular intervals like Cyclones, Floods etc. while some may be very infrequent such as Earthquakes, Tsunami, whereas at certain places, multiple hazards may co-exist. Thus, it is important for schools to identify and understand the probable hazards through systematic hazard assessment.

 

A historical profile of hazards in the school environment may be identified to obtain information about the prevailing hazards, their frequency and seasonality. Data sources to obtain such information can include interview of elders in the community, newspaper records, etc. Seasonal Mapping of hazards can be done as showed in the table-1. The list is of indicative nature only and not exhaustive.

 

Based on scientific data, like earthquake risk maps, landslide zonation maps etc., the expected probability of different hazards can be identified which might never have occurred but have a probability to occur.

 

Figure 2 Typical hazard Calendar

  (Source: National Guidelines for School Disaster Safety)

 

Once hazards assessment is done, such information must be displayed at a designated location in the school premises, so that it can be visible to everyone. Necessary structural mitigation measures must be taken by School management to ensure the safety of buildings after hazard assessment.

 

b. Safety of the School building

 

School buildings are often vulnerable to various types of hazards due to multiple reasons like old constructions, poor hazard knowledge while construction, poor maintenance and so on. In the aftermath of the Bhuj Earthquake, more than 1000, school buildings collapsed resulting in deaths of approx. 1000 people and 1000 more injuries of children and teachers. (A.S.Surya, Padmnabhan, & Karanth)During the 2008 Kosi floods, 159 primary and middle schools were destroyed across five districts of Bihar. Due to widespread devastation, the start of the school term was delayed by more than a month across the region. Another 716 government schools suffered extensive damage, while 1624 faced noticeable damage. Overall 2399 schools out of the total 7480 schools in the five districts were damaged by floodwaters (SEEDS, 2012). Therefore, in order to ensure safety of children as well as teachers and to minimize the impact on education of children, it is extremely necessary to ensure the structural safety of school buildings.

 

There are spatial and temporal dimensions of hazard risks. India is having a multi-hazard profile which ranges from earthquakes, floods, cyclones to routine hazards such as fire, road accidents. The structure of the school building should be suited to the hazard profile of the region where it is being constructed. And by safety of school buildings, safety of both school building and the school premises is considered.

Figure 3 Earthquake Hazard zonation map

 

(Source:htttp://www.bmptc.org/datafiles/cms/file/map%20of%20india/eq-india.pdf)

 

Let us illustrate this further with the example of the areas affected by earthquake hazard. Figure 2 above shows earthquake risk in India. A significant part of India lies in Zone V and Zone IV which are considered very high and high damage risk zone respectively. This implies the risk of the large number of students from building collapse/damage triggered by earthquakes etc.

 

Effective implementation of building codes in conjecture with hazard profiling can reduce the risk to a considerable extent and can help in developing safer school buildings. Figure-3 below illustrates the importance of safe buildings. If a school building stands tall in an event of earthquake, it adds not only to the safety of all students, teachers and non-teaching staff but provides lead time for evacuation as well.

Figure 3: How an earthquake-resilient building works,

Source:(Making School Safer from Natural Disaster, 2004)

 

Similarly measures for developing safer structures to prevent other hazards like fire, cyclone etc. can be adopted suited to the regional specificity.

 

c. School Disaster Management Plan

 

    School disaster management plan is a very useful and beneficial non-structural mitigation component in School Safety Programmes. The process of making Disaster management plan involves following steps:

 

Developing Incident Emergency Operation Plan Developing inventory of Capacities available

 

Evacuation Planning

 

Setting up a body/institution to implement the disaster management plan

 

After hazards assessment and identification, next step is to develop Incident Response System or in other words, Emergency Operation Plan (EOP). Such incident response plan identifies persons and establishes procedures to follow during an emergency event. It includes guidelines for school administration, teachers, non-teaching staff and students. Involvement of students in the Emergency Operation planning is particularly important as it encourages student leadership, engages youth in school emergency management planning and contributes to student preparedness.

 

An EOP should consist of the following-

 

Process/circumstances for activation of plan, assigning emergency responsibilities, defining chain of commands and overall procedure of maintaining the plan.

 

Communication process in case of an emergency should be laid out in the plan. This includes guidance on warning and alert systems and operating procedures for all stakeholders involved.

 

An inventory should be included in the list consisting of medical supplies and their location, other equipments and necessary phone numbers.

 

A section on hazard or threat specific to school should be included in Emergency Operation Plan.

 

For the implementation of emergency operation plan, an incident response committee should be established as illustrated in figure 4. This needs to be based on principles of Incident Response System. It should consist of incident manager and different sections such as Operation, Logistics, Planning and other as required.

     Figure -4. Example of Incident Response System chart for School

 

(Source: Safer,Stronger,Smarter: A Guide to Improving School Natural Hazard Safety, 2017)

 

Evacuation is an integral part of disaster response system. Previously, limited to wartime evacuation, today this concept is embodied in Disaster Management in response to Earthquake, Flood, Fire, Tropical Cyclone etc. However, one needs to think evacuation in the local context and the nature of hazards and vulnerability identified in a locality. It needs to be planned at the micro level and macro level for schools.

 

Evacuation plan must be simplified and illustrative

 

It should be in local language with which children can relate easily and act accordingly This Plan should have multi hazard approach such as Earthquake, Fire, etc.

 

Instead of separate document, evacuation plan can be a part of Emergency Operation Plan. Evacuation plan needs to lay out the Floor plan, Exit points and Assembly points.

 

Floor plan should include locations where equipment (Fire extinguishers, first aid kit) are located that may be needed during emergency. A sample floor plan is illustrated in the figure below.

Figure 4- Floor plan and evacuation route

  (Source: A.S.Surya, Padmnabhan, & Karanth)

 

Evacuation plan also needs to mark Exit Routes, that should be clearly marked and well lit ; is wide enough to accommodate the number of children and unobstructed and unhindered pathway and staircase.

 

Assembly points are those locations where children can assemble after evacuation and can wait till further instructions. In most of the schools, playground can be utilized as assembly point. Those schools which are in the market area or congested and do not have playground, need to think out separately. In such Schools, assembly points could be another building at a safe distance from school building.

 

 

d. Awareness Generation and Capacity building

 

Public Awareness is at the core of disaster risk reduction. The awareness programmes should include consist of information regarding hazards and disasters and how schools may be affected during and after any disaster. It should also include instructions about response for teachers and student so that they can protect themselves. Importance of preparedness should also be emphasized such as how it can minimizes losses and damages. There are several means to deliver the message of safety and resilience such as lecture series, brochures, leaflets, documentaries/short films etc. Awareness generation activities such as exhibition, debates, writing competitions, drawing competition for students etc. can be organized.

 

Capacity building may also include training of first-aid, how to use fire extinguisher and regular mock drills. First-Aid training need also to be given to teachers and student, which may minimize injuries after disasters. Training needs also to be given on the use of fire extinguishers, that should consist of information regarding different types of fire and usage of various types of extinguishers available to contain the fire. This training should involve practical demonstration of using fire extinguishers in controlled manner and environment.

 

Mock drill is the most common way to disseminate and test an emergency operation plan. During a drill, the school personnel use actual school grounds to practice a response to event. Mock drills may be done at regular interval throughout the academic year. One drill can be informed and the other may be unexpected or without any prior assignment. Mock drill for evacuation during fire or bomb threat is most practiced. But depending on local hazard, context specific mock drills needs to be conducted. Evaluation should also be done for getting feedback. This feedback may be used to upgrade the school disaster management plan.

 

National School Safety Programme

 

Government of India has implemented National School Safety Programme (NSSP) during the year 2011-13, under the leadership of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in collaboration with Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), State/UT governments and national/ international agencies in 43 districts under 22 States/UT’s which lies in seismic zone IV & V according to seismic zonation map.

 

As per the National Guidelines of school safety, the objectives of NSSP are as follows:

 

To initiate policy level changes for ensuring safe school environment.

 

To sensitize children and the school community on disaster preparedness and safety measures.

 

To motivate direct participation of key stakeholders in activities that wouldhelp building a disaster resilient community.

 

To promote capacity building of officials, teachers and students.

    To carry out Information, Education and Communication (IEC) activities in schools and associated environment.

 

To implement non-structural mitigation measures in select schools. To carry out demonstrative structural retrofitting in select schools.

 

 

Operational components of NSSP :

 

As part of capacity building interventions, training of teachers and master trainers to be carried out.

 

Preparation of school disaster management plan and distribution of disaster preparedness kits to selected schools in the targeted district.

 

Development of Information, Education and Communication material for school children in local language in the written and audio-visual format.

 

Sensitization programmes for government officials, NSS volunteers and other stakeholders who shall be involved in generating awareness among general public.

 

Carrying out rapid visual screening survey in selected school building in targeted district. Preparation of standard check-list for the assessment of structural and non-structural risks for school buildings.

 

Retrofitting of one school building in one district each in targeted States/UT’s.

 

Summary

  • Providing safe schooling facilities is one of the principal components to minimize risk facing children.
  • This includes safety from large-scale ‘natural’ hazards of geological/climatic origin, human-made risks, pandemics, violence, as well as more frequent and smaller-scale risks like fires, road accidents and other emergencies, and environmental threats that can adversely affect the lives of children.
  • Recognizing the critical role that schools play, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction identifies as priority “Investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience”.
  • School safety programmes play a pivotal role in providing risk knowledge, generating awareness and developing capacity.
  • School safety programmes also help attaining resilience from grassroots which trickles down in the community
  • School safety programmes also serve the broader goals of ensuring right to education and safety as human right
  • Components of school safety programmes broadly include Identification of hazards, Safety of the School building, Preparing the School Disaster Management Planand Awareness generation and Capacity building

 

you can view video on School Safety and Disaster Resilience

 

References

  • A.S.Surya, Padmnabhan, G., & Karanth, A. (n.d.). School Safety. New Delhi: National Disaster Management Division.
  • Aldunce, P., Beilin, R., Handmer, J., & Howden, M. (2014). Framing disaster resilience the implications of the diverse conceptualisations of “bouncing back”. Disaster Prevention and Management, 252-270.
  • Athreye, V. (2014, December 17). My India. Retrieved from MapsofIndia:
  • Castleden, M., Mckee, M., Murray, V., & Leonardi, G. (2011). Resilience thinking in health protection. Journal of Public Health, 369-377.
  • (2016). Child-centred Disaster Risk Reduction. New York: UNICEF.
  • Etkin, D. (2016). Disaster Theory An Interdisciplinary Approach to Concepts and Causes. Oxford:Elsevier. (2004). Making School Safer from Natural Disaster. Jakarta: Government of Indonesia.
  • Masten, A. S., & Obradovic, J. (2008). Disaster Preparedness and Recovry: Lessons from Research on Resilience in Human Development . Ecology and Society, 1-16.
  • (n.d.). National Guidelines for School Disaster Safety. Colombo: Ministry of Education and National Institute of Education .
  • (n.d.). National School Safety Programme. New Delhi: Government of India.
  • Norris, F. H., P.Stevens, S., Pfefferbaum, B., F.Wyche, K., & Pfefferbaum, R. L. (2008). Community Resilience as a metaphor,theory,set of capacities and strategy for disaster readiness. American Journal of Coummunity Psychology, 127-150.
  • Paton, D. (2006). Disaster Resilience: Building Capacity to co-exist with natural hazards and their consequences. In D. Paton, & D. M. Johnston, Disaster Resilience: an integrated approach (pp. 3-10). Charles C Thomas .
  • (2017). Safer,Stronger,Smarter: A Guide to Improving School Natural Hazard Safety. Washington,D.C.: Federal Emeergency Management Agency .
  • School Safety. (2017, August 4). Retrieved from National Disaster Management Authority:
  • http://www.ndma.gov.in/en/media-public-awareness/kids-section/school-safety.html(2015). Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. Sendai: United Nations.
  • Twigg, J. (2009). Characteristics of a Disaster Resilient Community. London: UCL Hazard research centre.
  • Wiser, B., Ilan Kelman, T. M., Bothara, J. K., Alexander, D., Dixit, A. M., Benouar, D., . . . Patel, M. (2004). School Seismic Safety: Falling Between the Cracks? In C. Rodrigue, & E. Rovai, Earthquakes (pp. 1-56). London: Routledge.