Floods badly damaged 6,225 educational institutions, 13pc health facilities, says report

KARACHI: The 2022 floods caused unprecedented cumulative damage and loss to the public education sector. In the assessed districts, the entire span of education services, from pre-primary to lifelong learning, has suffered, according to latest Pakistan Floods 2022 Post-Disaster Needs Assessment study.

The floods have impacted approximately 17,205 public schools (primary to higher secondary), colleges, special education centres/ schools/ institutions, technical and vocational education and training centres, and universities. At least 6,225 education institutions were assessed as fully damaged and 10,980 as partially damaged.

This has affected some 94,478 teachers and 2.6 million enrolled students (of which over 1 million are estimated to be female students). School education (pre-primary to higher secondary) suffered the most, with a 97 percent share of all damaged education institutions affecting an estimated 2.4 million students. Within school education, the damage to primary schools is highest with an 80 percent share of all damaged institutions, affecting 1.1 million students.

The roadmap for recovery includes an immediate focus on the resumption of learning through alternative or temporary learning spaces to mitigate risks to children and adolescents’ education, protection, and well-being.

This is particularly important as the reconstruction and repair of accessible, safe, secure, and inclusive education institutions will continue into the medium to long term. Ensuring quality education should be prioritized throughout all recovery phases, including the need to assess learning losses, plan for learning recovery, establish systems to track students’ access and learning, and continuous education and support for teachers to adapt to new conditions.

Recovery strategies should also emphasize the need to strengthen disaster preparedness and response at all levels through disaster risk management training and emergency response planning in the medium term and incorporating disaster resilience in education sector planning and implementation in the long term.

The 2022 floods affected close to half of the country, damaging 13 percent of the health facilities, which in turn interrupted health service delivery from the community level (primary healthcare including Rural Health Centres and Basic Health Units) through the secondary level (District Headquarters, Tehsil Headquarters, and Civil Hospitals). More than one-fifth of affected facilities were fully damaged. Malnutrition, which was already dangerously high, has substantively increased. Around 650,000 pregnant women are facing challenges in getting access to maternal services, while nearly 4 million children lack access to health services.

Pakistan is experiencing substantive increases of communicable diseases such as acute diarrhoea, cholera, malaria, and dengue. Disruption in health service delivery will increase health inequities for the poor and disadvantaged due to hindered access to services such as immunizations, routine medical care including medication for chronic disease, maternal and child health services, as well as risk of higher out-of-pocket health expenditures.

This analysis, which was limited to the public health system only, accounts for the: (i) reconstruction of health infrastructure with improved resilient capacities for PKR 27.1 billion (US$126 million); (ii) immediate additional needs for resumption of health services, including an urgent response to outbreaks of vaccine preventable and communicable diseases, which will be the top priority followed by earliest resumption of essential healthcare to affected populations for a total of PKR 5.8 billion (US$27 million); and (iii) use of prefabricated facilities and the use of mobile clinics to reach the most vulnerable communities for a total 52 Social of PKR 7.2 billion (US$34 million).

Immediate action is required to restore essential service delivery and critical public health functions, particularly disease outbreak surveillance in affected districts, to minimize the impact of the disaster on health of population. For the medium and long term, there is need to build resilient health systems and infrastructure to enhance the readiness to respond to crises (infectious disease outbreaks, natural hazards), while also maintaining core functions of health systems.