Schools’ Flood Emergency Preparedness in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan

Abstract

Pakistan is highly exposed to climate-induced disasters, especially floods. Flooding history shows that educational establishments have been disproportionately hard-hit by flooding events. In Pakistan, school safety and preparedness is still a choice, rather than a mandatory requirement for all schools. But schools in Pakistan do have a responsibility to keep safe the students in their care, especially during and after the catastrophic events. This implies the need to maintain the environment in and around school property, so as to minimize the impacts of floods and to have the mechanisms in place to maximize a school's resilience. This study examined the emergency preparedness activities of 20 schools in four districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province that had recently been severely affected by floods. Through face to face interviews and a structured questionnaire (n = 100) we collected data on the four pillars of emergency preparedness: emergency planning, preparation measures, safe school facilities, and hazard education and training. The study revealed that the majority of the sample schools had experienced more than one natural hazard-induced disaster, predominantly flooding, yet despite this had not undertaken adequate emergency preparedness activities. There are particular gaps with regard to plans for students with disabilities, the continuity of school operations after a disaster, the presence of maps to identify evacuation routes, the availability of emergency equipment and resources, disaster preparedness guidelines, and psychological first aid and crisis counseling. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis that our researchers carried out indicates that, although schools in the survey have taken many steps towards flood preparedness, many weaknesses still exist and there remain significant opportunities to strengthen the preparedness level of many schools. The goal of this study is to inform policy decisions that improve school safety in Pakistan and to suggest the priority areas for future school disaster preparedness and management efforts.

A Vulnerability Assessment of Urban Emergency in Schools of Shanghai

“…Schools can also cooperate with their local partners including police department, fire department, emergency medical centers and hospitals for technical guidance and assistance when offering first aid treatment to students during flood emergencies. The major findings are similar to what other studies have called for [18,29,31,32].…”

“…In another research conducted by Kibble [30] in the United Kingdom, the crisis management guidance given by local education authorities to schools has been examined, suggesting that preventive and precautionary measures should be paid more attention to cope with fires, floods, incidents and structural damages. In addition, Shah et al [31] investigated the school emergency preparedness in a province of Pakistan which had recently been severely affected by floods. The study revealed that although sample schools have undertaken many steps towards flood preparedness, most of the schools in the survey have experienced more than one flood event.Within this paper, a scenario-based approach was proposed by incorporating flood inundation detection, GIS-based network analysis and school vulnerability assessment, to identify the cascading impacts of pluvial flash flooding on emergency responses for vulnerable schools and students in cities.…”

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“…All of these can combinedly contribute towards continuing education even during an emergency. Identifying and extracting different essential factors from this framework can be pivotal for continuing education in the Flash Flood affected Haor regions (UNDRR, 2017; Shah et al, 2018). The framework further accentuates collaboration among relevant stakeholders to alignthe education sector and disaster risk reduction efforts (UNDRR, 2017).…”

Disaster Preparedness Education: Construction Curriculum Requirements to Increase Students’ Preparedness in Pre- and Post-Disaster Activities

“…Different geographical locations are susceptible to different types of disasters, and the studies often focus on the type(s) of disasters that occur in that locale. For example, Shah et al (2018) focused on floods while discussing students' preparedness, as Pakistan is more prone to flooding than to other types of disasters.…”

“…Third world Asian countries are notably behind in this regard. For example, in Pakistan, each school has total authority to decide whether or not to include school safety and disaster preparedness for the students (Shah, et al, 2018).…”