Attachments
Why School Safety?
School safety was given a major focus
by the United Nations International Strategy on Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR)
when the 2006-2007 World Disaster Reduction Campaign was devoted to the
theme "Disaster Reduction Begins at School". This theme was chosen
by UN/ISDR because (a) it is in line with the Priority 3 of the Hyogo Framework
for Action 2005-2015: "Use knowledge, innovation and education to
build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels, and (b) schools
are the best venues for forging durable collective values; and therefore
suitable for building a culture of prevention and disaster resilience .
UNESCO and UNEP (2004) emphasize on the importance of school safety by
stating that, "the upgrading and construction of schools that will
be relatively safe during the occurrence of disasters should be part of
a nation's long-term planning." It even went beyond to identify the
specific reasons for which a school should be made safe; for safety as
school buildings can save lives, for shelter as schools be utilized as
shelters in emergency period, for continuation of education as education
is disrupted in times of emergencies and finally for resource preservation
as schools are valuable local investment of a nation.
From Bangladesh's perspective, school infrastructures are most vulnerable
during disasters due to poor construction, lack of proper maintenance and
many other issues related to the schools. Moreover, as a result of the
rapid urbanization and over population in urban areas, schools are growing
in an unplanned way to accommodate students in the education system. As
a result, vulnerability is ever increasing in the education sector and
safety of the students is becoming questionable day by day. Considering
all these, school safety has become an issue of major priority to make
schools safer for the wellbeing of our next generation.