All schools in the State will soon have to draw up customised school disaster management plans for the event of a natural or man-made disaster. The National Disaster Management Authority has come up with guidelines for the School Safety Policy.
To help spread awareness about this and to ensure that school managements have the technical know-how, the National Institute of Disaster Management, in collaboration with the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC), is conducting a three-day workshop in Bengaluru for trainers.
More than 30 officials from the District Institutes of Education and Training are participating in this workshop.
In August, the Supreme Court said that guidelines on School Safety Policy, 2016, prepared by the National Disaster Management Authority, should be implemented in “letter and spirit” by the authorities concerned. The State government is working on translating the guidelines into Kannada, to be made accessible to schools later this year.
The workshop
The workshop, which began on Monday, has lectures on several aspects of disaster management by schools. G.S. Srinivasa Reddy, director of KSNDMC, said topics such as mock drill framework for schools, social audit of schools, and basic concepts of disaster management and institutional mechanism will be covered at the workshop. “Our training aims to help schools to develop a coping mechanism for students, teachers, parents and other stakeholders if disaster strikes. We will also talk about how a disaster can be mitigated,” he said.
Besides throwing light on disasters such as fire and accidents, the workshop will focus on urban flooding, which south-eastern parts of the city experienced earlier this year.
Mr. Reddy said there was a need for a safe environment for students not just at school but also en route from school to house. “There is a need to mark out accident zones and prepare a mechanism to deal with it,” he said, adding that other aspects include assessment of how vulnerable existing structures in schools are. “The purpose of the disaster management plan is to identify ways to reduce risks.”
Ritu Raj, a faculty member at the National Institute of Disaster Management, said they would also speak on the importance of drills and emphasise the roles and responsibilities of various people at the time of a disaster.
