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School Infrastructure Resilience: CoLab Workshop in Cali, Colombia - February 2018

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1.0 School Infrastructure Resilience: Global Challenges

Educational infrastructure in most countries around the world is underfunded and overextended, and schools are more vulnerable to natural hazards than other building types, not only putting children at significant risk, but also reducing the quality of education and limiting opportunities for economic and social growth and other community benefits. Furthermore, in the wake of natural disasters, despite best intentions to ‘build back better’, the opportunity to leverage investment in the reconstruction of schools has in some cases been lost due to lack of advance preparation and capacity for recovery and reconstruction.

Deficiencies in School Infrastructure

Globally, there is an insufficient supply of schools to meet demand. According to UNESCO, approximately 10% of children and youth are not enrolled in primary and secondary education. Existing schools are either at or over capacity, and the vulnerability of these buildings to natural hazards such as earthquakes, typhoons and floods is for the most part unknown. However, the tragic destruction resulting from recent natural disasters is clear evidence that schools across the world both in the Global North and South are extremely vulnerable to natural hazards.

Impacts on Urban Community Resilience

The inadequate supply of educational facilities in communities around the world coupled with the vulnerability of schools to natural disasters impacts general community welfare and long-term resilience in a multitude of ways beyond the immediate risk of collapse posed by the schools themselves:

Inadequate space, lighting, ventilation, and sanitation as well as the use of toxic construction materials in schools pose health risks for students and teachers and reduce the quality of the environment in which education occurs, which in turn increases the likelihood of student absence or disenrollment, leading to increased risk of exploitation or neglect and reduced job preparedness.

An inadequate supply of local schools forces students to travel long distances, exposing them to dangerous road conditions and reducing the amount of time they can devote to their studies and other productive activities. It also increases the likelihood of absenteeism.

The closing of schools in the event of a natural disaster disrupts the education system for prolonged periods of time and prevents parents from returning to work, resulting in substantial losses of productivity and economic gains, pushing many families back into poverty.

Leveraging Disaster as Opportunity

While the widespread destruction caused by a natural disaster should be leveraged as an opportunity to build safer schools in way that enhances community resilience, in many cases, this opportunity is lost. National and local governments are typically not prepared in advance with the technical resources, human resources, and operational plans to mobilize quickly and make use of the substantial funds that flow in after a disaster to rebuild in a more resilient way. The political pressures to get children back in school quickly favor rapid construction processes that in many cases are contrary to building safe schools and increasing community resilience. For example, in the name of efficiency, construction responsibility may be outsourced to a private contractor who uses construction materials, techniques, and labor that are not appropriate for the local context. This practice not only limits opportunities for local capacity building through construction training of local contractors and economic development through local jobs and local material supply chains, but also, it reduces the likelihood of quality control because the contractor has limited incentive to increase quality at added cost to ensure safe construction techniques are adhered to. While a community-driven reconstruction program would be more appropriate for achieving resilience outcomes, in many cases, it is simply not practical because of the amount of effort and human resources required to rebuild on such a massive scale. If cities were better prepared in advance to accept and plan for this reality, they would be in a better position to pursue community-driven reconstruction programs.

Existing Efforts on School Safety

The problem of vulnerable schools is not unstudied. Ongoing efforts by various organizations to address the issue of ‘safe schools’ include UNISDR’s Worldwide Initiative for Safe Schools (WISS), World Bank GFDRR’s Global Program for Safer Schools (GPSS) and the Global Alliance for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience in the Education Sector (GADRRRES). The focus of the efforts identified above has largely been on improved safety - i.e. reducing the vulnerability of schools to natural hazards such as earthquakes, typhoons and floods (with an emphasis on earthquakes) and increasing awareness of natural hazard risk by enhancing school curricula.