Rebuilding education post-natural disaster: Lessons from Nepal earthquake 2015

• In Event: Poster session IV
  In Poster Session: Rebuilding education post-natural disaster: lessons from Nepal earthquake 2015

Proposal

Poster Objective:
This poster will examine the importance of rebuilding sustainable education systems in countries prone to natural disasters by drawing upon the lessons learned by Nepal after the 2015 earthquake. The research will explore the following questions:
1. What major lessons can be learned from the Nepal earthquake for rebuilding education?
2. How do the educational impacts of natural disasters differ for private and public school systems?
3. How should a country’s education sector prepare and react to minimize these impacts?

Background:
Natural disasters have a huge impact on children, schools and education sectors. Despite the UN SDG no. four highlights that access to quality education and safe learning environments is the basic right of every child, education is not prioritized during disaster response and the rehabilitation of damaged schools is often delayed (Ireland, 2016). This is particularly true for developing countries like Nepal.
In 2015, Nepal was struck with two catastrophic earthquakes of 7.8 and 7.3 magnitudes, causing a significant loss of life and property. According to UNOCHA, more than 16,000 public and private schools, about half of the country’s total, were damaged and an estimated two million children were affected. The extensive damage to the education infrastructure in Nepal left children in need of critical education support to ensure their long-term development (Ireland, 2016). Due to inadequate technical capacity to rebuild schools and the high cost of emergency education interventions, children were at higher risk of missing school for months and eventually, dropping out.
While studies have been done about the impacts of natural disasters, little is known about how these impacts differ for private and public schools and how a country’s education system should prepare and respond to these impacts. Based on the learnings from the Nepal earthquake, this research recommends that sustainable rebuilding should be at the core of an education system, for both private and public schools.

Methodology:
Through an extensive literature review, this research will examine post-earthquake response and progress reports prepared by the Nepalese government and international development organizations. The author will also draw upon three years of personal experience working to establish temporary learning centers and rebuild a government school in Nepal as part of the Nepal Earthquake Relief Project. Qualitative interviews will be conducted with government officials, non-profit, private and public school leaders, on the effectiveness of education rebuilding efforts made by Nepal. The data will be analyzed to create themes relevant to the topic of study.

Contribution and relevance to CIES:
This proposal is directly relevant to the CIES theme of education for sustainability. It will contribute to the literature on how the negative educational impacts of natural disasters can be minimized, especially for public schools and also present findings based on lessons from Nepal earthquake, on how countries can plan and rebuild sustainable education systems to foster economic progress. The findings can be used by policymakers, international donor agencies, and public as a critical source of information on disaster preparedness and recovery of a country’s education sector.

Author

• Shristi Mishra, University of Pennsylvania