School Safety Initiatives- Need for More Active Intervention from Engineering Community

Abstract eng:
Right to education being a fundamental right, it is incumbent on the State to ensure a safe environment for education. In spite of that, numerous schools have collapsed or been badly damaged in recent earthquakes in India and elsewhere. Most school safety programs are presently being driven by social scientists and non-government organizations (NGOs). There are numerous projects and activities conducted by such agencies forrisk reduction. Such activities go a long way in sensitizing teachers and students. However, the need for structural strengthening of school buildings for seismic resistance does not appear to be top priority with NGOs and social scientists. This may be possibly due to lack of appreciation of the importance of safe structures or reluctance to deal with issues that are outside their domain area. The state is supportive of such non-structural initiatives as they demand much smaller investment and yield high returns in terms of outreach and visibility. In the interim, school buildings continue to collapse in earthquakes. The challenge lies in the engineering community communicating and articulating that school safety programs are of not much value if the building is unsafe in the first place. The paper reviews the present imbalance in school safety programs in India through the Gujarat state example and suggests interventions to ensure that the school safety programs account for seismic upgradation of existing schools and seismic resistance of new schools.

• Export as: BibTeX | MARC | MARCXML | DC | EndNote | NLM | RefWorks
• Add to your basket