National Disaster Management Authority has launched a pilot project of Pakistan School Safety Framework (PSSF) under which the disaster management training will be provided to 68 selected schools from across the country.
The launching of the programme was approved here on Tuesday by Chairman NDMA, Major General Asghar Nawaz. As per approved plan, 68 public (provincial government, federal government and provincial education foundation schools) and private schools including Beacon House, Fazaia School System, Bahria School System, Army Public School and College System (APSACS), schools of City School System in Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, Islamabad Capital Territory, AJ&K (Muzaffarabad) and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) have been selected for training.
The authority has launched the programme in accordance with an agreement signed with United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in November 2015. The partnership is aimed at enhancing disaster preparedness, response and recovery with a special focus on children. The Gender and Child Cell (GCC) of the NDMA, with the support of the UNICEF and the British Council thus pursued PSSF to get prepared for an effective and efficient response against natural or man-made disasters.
The Pakistan School Safety Framework was developed after a series of national-level consultative meetings with the government and the private sector's stakeholders and it was also reviewed by the international consultants. A consensus was developed in the final national consultative meeting on 17-18 August 2016 that frameworks should be pre-tested through a pilot programme and its findings should be reviewed through another consultative meeting to refine the framework before its implementation. Before the start of the pilot programme, 68 schools were selected through the involvement of respective education departments and secretariats of the private school systems. Amongst these schools, nominations were obtained for school teachers all over the country to be trained by the expert trainers regarding school safety.
The pilot programme comprises four phases. In the first phase, a core group of 30 members was trained in Lahore as master school trainers and quality supervisors. In the second phase, the core group is responsible for training three teachers and one head teacher from each of the nominated 68 schools on the PSSF.
These trainings began on November 22 and to continue till December 10, 2016. In Balochistan (Quetta) it has been completed from 22 to 25 November and in Punjab (Lahore) from 26 to 29 November. In Gilgit-Baltistan (Gilgit) it began on Tuesday and to continue till 2 December and in federal capital Islamabad and Sindh from 5 to 8 December while in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Peshawar) from 7 to 10 December, 2016.
The same trainers will also train the officers of district education department, building department, fire department and police in carrying out evaluation of schools to ascertain school safety standard. These trainings will be conducted in December 2016. The third phase of the pilot project will be the roll out of the School Safety Framework to the schools in the month of December 2016 and January 2017. The trained teachers will go back to their schools for developing the respective school safety plan, raise school safety organisations, undertake the self-assessment of the school safety standards in accordance with Pakistan School Safety Framework and also prepare school community for response against disasters.
The final phase of the pilot programme that is to end in January 2017, will envisage the evaluation of school safety standards through the team of evaluators of district departments of education, building, fire and police along with representatives of the NDMA and Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMAs). During the evaluation, the schools will share their self-assessment of safety standards and their school safety plans. The evaluation team will ascertain the school safety standards as per the Pakistan School Safety Framework as the 2nd party evaluation.
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