Disaster risk management workshop held

SENIOR education managers and the Civil Protection Unit (CPU) officials last week undertook training in disaster risk management to improve their capacity to deal with disasters in schools.

The workshop was attended by senior education officials who included provincial education officers from all provinces and principal directors in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education.

Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education principal director, Mr Jacob Gonese said the meeting was aimed at orienting senior education managers to the updated disaster risk management manual, as well as establishing the basis for sustainable delivery of the strategy for disaster reduction training and management.

“This is an excellent platform to review the manual as we seek to cascade this training to all levels until it gets to the school learner,” he said.

“It is also important to note that the ministry has been exposed to disasters related to damages of infrastructure, teaching and learning materials and of late the cholera outbreak.”

Mr Gonese indicated the manual covered disaster issues affecting both rural and urban schools and would save Government funds if authorities were properly trained in ways of averting disasters.

He said while urban schools seemed to be grappling with technological issues, rural schools were contending with infrastructural challenges, lightning and whirlwinds, especially during the start of the rainy season.

“Quite often we have witnessed cases of fire outbreaks due to electrical faults that have caused extensive damage to schools infrastructure,” said Mr Gonese.

He said disaster risk management was an important aspect of Agenda 2030 in resilience building, which would focus on national capacity building for disaster risk reduction, primarily by mainstreaming disaster reduction and climate change adaptation in poverty reduction strategies.

“Agenda 2030 is about transforming our world for the better, a holistic plan for action on all fronts, socially, economically and environmentally,” said Mr Gonese.

“We need to build a world where each one of us embraces the challenge of pursuing sustainable development.”

Mr Gonese said the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education by nature of its mandate was in charge of more than one third of the population, which was characterised by young learners who were in most cases grouped at one place, hence the need to properly manage the school environment to prevent and reduce any disasters.

“We need to build a world where each one of us embraces the challenges of pursuing sustainable development,” said Mr Gonese.