Study on the context of school-based disaster management

Abstract

In recent years, the incidence and impact of natural disasters have drastically increased. Schools are responsible for not only teaching disaster management knowledge but also serving as evacuation shelters. Occurrences of disasters are highly unpredictable. If a disaster happens during school hours, schools must consider the risks that students are exposed to and respond early to such an event. Moreover, if schools can implement an all-hazards management approach by comprehensively organising practical environmental preparedness, software plans, and disaster drills, then injuries, deaths, and property damages can be effectively reduced and school resilience to disasters can successfully enhanced. Therefore, this study established an assessment framework for school disaster management involving concepts such as scenario setting, emergency thinking, and disaster psychology. School disaster management plans and the integrity and validity of disaster drills were used as the basis of evaluation. According to the existent schools in Taiwan, this study proposed indicators for five major assessment dimensions, which were environmental context, school capability, school disaster management map, related resource importation, and teaching material development and implementation. Finally, 35 schools were evaluated to verify that the proposed school disaster management indicator system can effectively distinguish and reflect the disaster management condition of each type of school. Additionally, this system can facilitate schools to regularly inspect and verify various disaster management tasks, thereby enhancing their capability in responding to disasters.