Extent of disaster courses delivery for the risk reduction in Rwanda

Abstract

This study assessed the extent to which disaster related courses are integrated into formal education to enhance community's awareness and resilience to disasters in Kigali City, Rwanda. A face-to-face interview was conducted across 56 respondents purposively sampled from the Primary and Secondary schools, Universities, Ministry of Disaster Management and Refugees and Rwanda Education Board in 2016. The results revealed a good level of disaster risk reduction awareness among respondents, while the related courses delivery rate is low. This indicates that the information is not well spread, and may affect future generations, due to lack of related skills and knowledge. In addition, disaster courses are largely taught in secondary schools than primary schools, and generally theoretical in mixture with other courses. If started from primary schools, where the number of students is higher than those in secondary schools, the skills and knowledge could reach a large number of people. Therefore, this expresses little value attributed to offering such courses and the role of disaster resilience education in reducing the community's vulnerability to disasters is not yet realized. Moreover, as much value is not given to offering these courses, hindrances such as lack of appropriate and technical teaching staff with appropriate materials are experienced. The analysis suggested to (1)introduce disaster courses from primary to graduate schools as separate courses with appropriate materials, (2) provide technical trained staff to disseminate practical disaster risk reduction assistance and (3) incorporate disaster risk reduction into decision making processes and ensure collaboration among all concerned stakeholders.