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Comprehensive School Safety can save lives
Disasters caused by natural hazards claimed some 1.3 million lives between 1998 and 2017, and wreaked untold havoc on livelihoods and infrastructure worldwide. There are no signs of the risk posed by natural hazards decreasing, particularly having witnessed the devastating impact of Cyclones Kenneth and Idai on families and communities in the Southern Africa. Furthermore, climate change is making storms, floods, droughts, and heatwaves even more frequent, damaging and deadly.
Education systems and infrastructure are greatly affected by disasters, but they are also part of the solution. Quality education with a focus on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) can provide life-saving and life-sustaining information and skills that protect learners during and after emergencies and disasters. It can bolster resilience and promote recovery.
UNESCO is organizing a regional training programme on Comprehensive School Safety (CSS) education planner, an education infrastructure planner, and a curriculum developer for Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
The training being held in Maputo, Mozambique, from 17-19 February 2020 addresses the management of disasters in the education sector and aims to protect learners and education workers from physical harm in schools; assure educational continuity when faced with hazards; safeguard education sector investments, and strengthen climate鈥恠mart disaster resilience through education.
"Building resilient infrastructure and providing guidelines/standards for workmanship is essential for school safety,鈥 said one of the participants.
Comprehensive schools safety consist of there pillars:
- Safe Educational Facilities: including site selection, safe access (functionality), safe construction and retrofit (global structural and local structural), and non鈥恠tructural safety;
- Disaster Management: including standard operating procedures, ongoing school-based planning for risk reduction and educational continuity, drills, etc.; and
- Disaster Prevention and Risk Reduction Education: the integration of DRR into teaching and learning, including DRR in formal school curricula and non鈥恌ormal education within the framework of Education for Sustainable Development.
At the conclusion of the first day of training, participants noted that disaster risk education is the foundation for successful Disaster Risk Reduction.
