School Disaster Management Margdarshika

Gujarat School Safety ProgramProgram Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority

           Schools are critical infrastructure entrusted with the responsibility of creating citizens of tomorrow. A safe and secure environment is a prerequisite for effective teaching and learning. Thus ensuring safety of children, teachers and staff members during disasters is necessary. In the light of recent tragedies involving school children, like the Kumbakonam fire tragedy, Dabwali fire incident and earthquakes around the world where school children were affected due to unsafe school buildings. It becomes of utmost importance that safety of children is given due consideration, thus making schools safe also serves the purpose of their dual use as evacuation centres during.  

                     

            Building safe schools should be a priority for architects, engineers, policy makers, administrators and emergency response planners. Among all public facilities, children in schools are the most vulnerable during disasters. A large number of schools operate in congested urban centres and are exposed to various hazards. School safety includes within its ambit structural safety of the buildings per se and non-structural measures like awarenessgeneration,ensuringcommunication,school preparedness plans, capacity building of students and teachers, rehearsals and mock drills etc. Building safe schools will not only ensure safety of children in disasters, but will also promote faster rehabilitation post disaster.

 ➡Safe School    “School Safety” has been defined as the  Creation of safe environments for children, starting from their homes to their schools and back. ( As per National School Safety Policy)
Safety from natural hazards & Human induced risk like: Geological (Earthquake; Tsunami)Climatic  (Floods, Cyclone, Lightening, Hail Storms , Dust Storms) Pandemics (Swine flu, Malaria, etc)Fires (LPG, Electrical)Transportation  (Road, Rail Accidents) Environmental (Global Warming; Heat Waves, etc)➡Lessons Learnt from Past    Factor making school Vulnerable Lack of understanding and awareness regarding safety measuresLack of knowledge about resources, its use and need for disaster responseLack of trainings and practice  No having proper Disaster management planLack of understanding of Safe Evacuation ; No System of Response No Knowledge of Dos & Don'tsResponse Teams etc.

➡Need of School Safety
    Children are our future generation
Children carry information to Society
Schools are key factor for building the culture of disaster prevention
Schools are center of community  activities
➡Components of School Safety
   The main objective of the school safety activities is disaster risk reduction.
Generating Disaster Awareness in school community;
Hazard, Vulnerability and Risk analysis;
Facility and resource mapping;
Constitution and training of school disaster management committee and task forces;
Establishing alert mechanism;
Preparing school disaster management plan (SDMP ) including evacuation and response plan and calendar for preparedness activities;
Organising Mock drills;
Consideration of disability and gender based needs;
Periodic review and regular updation of SDMP;
School safety audit. The steps being taken by the Government emanate from the approach outlined above. The approach has been translated into a National Disaster Framework [a roadmap] covering institutional mechanisms, disaster prevention strategy, early warning system, disaster mitigation, preparedness and response and human resource development. The expected inputs, areas of intervention and agencies to be involved at the National, State and district levels have been identified and listed in the roadmap. This roadmap has been shared with all the State Governments and Union Territory Administrations. Ministries and Departments of Government of India, and the State Governments/UT Administrations have been advised to develop their respective roadmaps taking the national roadmap as a broad guideline. There is, therefore, now a common strategy underpinning the action being taken by all the participating organisations/stakeholders.

📖 Dowonlod School Safety File & Book

School Disaster Management

First Aid

Step Mock Drill

Teacher Module

Ayojan File

Paripatr