Advancing comprehensive school safety for Asia and the Pacific

This paper shows that the rights of school children to access quality education in Asia Pacific are being disrupted because of natural and man-made disasters. The document calls for the countries and their humanitarian and development partners to urgently ensure that the children's right to safety and security in schools, and to educational continuity in the face of emergencies are included in the Asia Regional Implementation Plans, Asia Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR) declaration, national education and disaster management plans and policies.

Within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, the Sendai Framework and the Worldwide Initiative for Safe Schools (WISS) agendas, there are opportunities to continue advocating for governments to commit to school safety and education continuity to ensure children’s right to education is protected. This document includes the following policy recommendations:

• Countries in Asia should become Safe School Leaders by signing up to the Worldwide Initiative for Safe Schools.
• National governments should ensure the enabling plans, policies, guidelines and legal frameworks are in place at the national and sub-national level to support the implementation of the Comprehensive School Safety Framework and ensure the education continuity in face of emergencies and disasters.
• By 2020, national governments should commit to developing a plan to effectively allocate adequate budget for the integration of the implementation of Comprehensive School Safety with multi-hazard approaches including conflict, and ensuring the education continuity, into the national disaster risk reduction and education sector plans.
• National governments should commit to building capacity of children and youth to become agents of behaviour change and school safety champions. They should create enabling environment for children and youth to participate in decision-making processes on how schools can be made safer for themselves.
• National governments should give greater attention and protection to children with disabilities in schools, before, during and after disasters and they should ensure that schools provide safe facilities to cater to the needs of children with disabilities so that they would be able to survive during disasters.
• National governments should ensure safer infrastructures and invest in school disaster management.
• Ministries of Education should collect data on children's attendance following disasters, especially those who cannot attend school for prolonged periods of time or completely drop out of school.
• Governments should continue fostering partnerships with all stakeholders, including national and local civil society organizations to collectively implement the Comprehensive School Safety Framework.

This paper was jointly released by Asia Pacific Coalition for School Safety (APCSS) and its partners in advance of the Asia Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR), in India, 2-5 November 2016,