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Disaster management in education is ultimately orientated towards
knowledge for action, such that meeting the needs of the emergency
services, local education authorities and schools remains of paramount
importance.
There already exists evidence that significant progress can be made in
bringing varied user groups together around the important matter of
disaster reduction, involving the education sector, government and the
emergency services. Following just two years of activity, for example,
the Japan-UK Disaster Risk Reduction Programme, as but one strand of
international collaboration, has already mobilised the significant
support and interest of senior officials from such disparate bodies as
Newcastle City Council, London Borough of Hounslow, City of Kyoto, Kyoto
City Fire Department, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service,
Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service and the Osaka Chamber of
Commerce, London Fire Brigade, Metropolitan Police, Lothian and Boarders
Fire and Rescue Service, Scottish Boarders Emergency Planning Unit, the
Risk Factory, Panmure House Girls Group, South Tyneside Town Council, as
well as policy makers operating at a national level.
Additionally, however, the three initial disaster education seminars
hosted by the programme in the UK have already demonstrated that
disaster education is a topic of increasing interest to not only
'card-carrying' academics from the field of 'disaster studies' itself,
but those from across many other social science sciences. By extension,
we also wish to draw attention to the possibilities for involving
academic colleagues residing in those more applied and
empirically-driven provinces of education studies, sociology, political
science, their associated cognate disciplines. This will assist, for
example, in both the translation of certain 'theoretical' and
methodological ideas across the academy and beyond.
The seminar series will engage participants in the analysis of frequent
disaster events, their interrelationship with ongoing development
issues, and the question of how they are being addressed by the current
education system. Given the ever-broadening policy imperatives described
above, all public organisations with a responsibility for, and interest
in, disaster management, are considered potential users.
Frequent disaster events and their interrelationship with ongoing
development issues require in depth reanalyses of how they are addressed
by the current education system. Between 1994 and 2003 more than 58,000
lives were lost and 255 million people affected by 'natural' disasters
globally each year. The economic cost has increased 14-fold since the
1950s to US$67 billion per year (Guha-Sapir, Hargitt and Hoyois, 2004).
The Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004), Hurricane Katrina (2005), Pakistan
earthquake (2005), and Cyclone Sidr (2007) are examples of some of the
most recent disasters. The UK experienced its most severe flooding for
decades in 2007, inflicting estimated costs of well over three billion
pounds. The likely influence of climate change in exacerbating the
frequency and intensity of some environmental disaster events,
particularly those relating to drought, flood, sea level rise and
extreme storms is also leaving many societies more anxious about the
future.
In addition to these environmental hazards, the world has also been
experiencing more explicitly human induced disasters, including the 11th
September (9/11) bombing of the World Trade Centre (2001), 7th July
(7/7) London Transport bombings (2005), and numerous political-economic
instabilities, wars and rumours of wars around the world. In the
meantime, disease epidemics, such as those threatened by Avian Flu, have
heightened the sense of uncertainty as to when, where and upon whom,
disasters will impact the most, and what level and type of preparedness
action can and should be implemented.
The multi-institutional series proposed will be informed by three
successful disaster education seminars held in England and Scotland
through the Japan-UK Disaster Risk Reduction Study Programme. These
initial, 'agenda- setting' seminars were hosted by relevant
organisations in Newcastle (Tyne and Wear Fire Service), London
(Hounslow Borough Council), and Edinburgh (The Risk Factory) in November
2007 using DDC links.
Five major issues emerged: the conceptual challenges of disaster
education; the balance between 'academic achievement' and disaster
education; and policy and practice challenges of disaster education. The
further interrogation of these three issues, therefore, provides both
the nucleus of the seminar series, and the core around which wider
questions of a broader social scientific appeal will be broached. This
will include examining the relationship between an 'academic oriented'
curriculum on disasters and people's sense of value in education for
reducing multiple and varied disaster risks.
The most significant policy guidance currently available is the Hyogo
Framework of Action 2005-2015 (HFA), which strongly recommends the
promotion and inclusion of disaster risk reduction knowledge in relevant
sections of school curricula at all levels. It advocates the use of
knowledge, innovation and education in the development of a culture of
safety and resilience at all levels, as one of the priorities for action
from 2005 - 2015. The HFA states that "Disasters can be substantially
reduced if people are well informed and motivated towards a culture of
disaster prevention and resilience, which in turn requires the
collection compilation and dissemination of relevant knowledge and
information on hazards, vulnerabilities and capacities "(UNISDR, 2005:
10). At the same time, the knowledge that mainstreaming disaster
reduction into development planning can increase development success is
now also concretized within many of the world's development agencies.
Indeed, the recent World Conference in Kobe is widely credited for
promoting the notion that one dollar invested in disaster preparedness
can prevent seven dollars' worth of disaster-related economic losses.
At the same time, anecdotoal evidence suggests that some teaching
practice in schools may, indirectly, encapsulate aspects of the contemporary
disaster education field under different classifications and banners.
Recognising therefore that the steps required are more complex, the
seminar series will also seek to establish, in association with
practitioners, policy makers and academics from across the social
sciences, the conceptual challenges of disaster education; the rationale
for disaster education; the role of education actors in disaster
education; the roles of non-education actors in disaster education; a
review of the socio-economic and political regimes in disaster
education.
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