NDMA springs into action to develop school safety guidelines

Islamabad

Keeping in view the recent threats to schools, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has come into action and given an idea to develop comprehensive School Safety Guidelines at national level.

The NDMA, in collaboration with the Unicef Pakistan, held first consultative dialogue to develop comprehensive School Safety Guidelines at national level here on Tuesday. 

The Gender and Child Cell of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA-GCC), with the support of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), is in the process of developing a set of National School Safety Policy Guidelines to be used by public and private schools across the country in case of natural and man-made disasters.

NDMA Chairman Major General Asghar Nawaz stated that schoolchildren are among the most vulnerable segments during occurrence of disasters and therefore they require special attention. As a proactive initiative from NDMA, School Safety Guidelines are being developed that will provide much needed guidance and a unified direction at national level to ensure safety of schools against wide array of natural calamities and man-made disasters, he said.

The safety guidelines would cover establishment and training of a school disaster safety team, development of the school safety and security plan and awareness creation about possible disasters.

It will also focus on analysis of the specific vulnerability and hazards of the school environment, evacuation routes and identified safe places, developing cooperation with the community; and practical exercises and evacuation mock drills to enable the school community to be prepared and to act adequately to save lives in case of an emergency.

The purpose of the safety guidelines is to build the capacity of schools across the country to prepare against and respond to disasters in an effective and efficient manner with minimal damage and loss of life. The sustained implementation of the guidelines would involve structural and non-structural interventions, establishment of a coordination mechanism amongst stakeholders and capacity building.

Participants from various organisations, including the Pakistan Red Crescent, UN Habitat, IOM, WFP, Oxfam, UNESCO, Hope ’87 and the Federal Ministry of Education attended the dialogue and gave objective inputs for the formulation of safety guidelines.