Institutionalization of disaster education In state of , India

Genta NAKANO1 and Rajib SHAW2 1Master student, Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Japan [email protected] 2Professor, Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Japan

ABSTRACT

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) education is implemented in various forms by different organizations. In state of Uttarakhand, India which lays on the middle part of Himalayan range and the state is thus prone to flood, landslide and earthquake. Educational approach is being carried out in that area in order to enhance the resilience against the disasters. Department of education infused DRR contents into curriculum and other governmental and non-governmental sectors conduct the project on DRR education. Besides, community itself has some means of knowledge transfer on DRR such as launching community radio, sharing of experiences and local knowledge to predict strong rain fall. However, these different practices are not conducted in synergetic way. Therefore, this research categorizes these different forms of education under three modes; formal, non-formal and informal education and aims to suggest the coordinated implementation to enhance the educational effectiveness. The result indicates the effective collaboration beyond the modes of education while further collaboration among different stakeholders will enhance the effectiveness of disaster education. It is important to establish the mechanism for the coordination in conducting DRR education beyond the modes of education.

Keywords: institutionalization, DRR education, Uttarakhand, India

1. INTRODUCTION

The disaster risk reduction (DRR) education is being recognized as one of the important strategies to reduce the impact of natural disasters because it contributes to enhance awareness and let people equip with the knowledge and skills to prepare for and protect themselves from the impact of natural disasters. In fact, various governmental and non- governmental organizations carry out the DRR education program and disaster prone communities share the disaster-related knowledge among people through various means such as local custom, storytelling, media and so on. These different forms of knowledge transfer is categorized under the following three modes of education; i) formal, ii) non- formal and iii) informal education. Formal education features to be delivered in an organized and structural means (Dib, 1988; Tissot, 2004), results to award certificate or diploma (Tissot, 2004) and basically adopts the “ladder system” (ISCED, 1997).

October 2015, Kathmandu, Nepal

Therefore the formal education is defined as the education which is delivered based on the curriculum through the framework of school. Non-formal education as well delivers the knowledge in an organized way however this mode is being carried out apart from the framework of school education (Coombs and Ahmed, 1974; Norland, 2005). The other feature is that non-formal education adopts various forms of modalities and methodologies according to the interests of learners. In short, this mode refers to the education conducted with various learning modalities and methodologies through the governmental and non-governmental organizations except formal education sectors. Third mode of education is informal education. This is unintentional learning process through the daily life experiences such as occupational life and family relationship (Coombs and Ahmed, 1974; Norland, 2005) and the form of knowledge transfer is neither organized nor structured (Dib, 1988; Tissot, 2004). Hence the informal education comes to be defined as the unintentional learning through various means in daily life. As indicated, there are three modes of education and integrated implementation of them enhances educational effectiveness. Tudor (2012) indicated that education is needed in the direction of combining formal one which is specific to class, with non-formal and informal strategy. Most importantly in the context of DRR education, the effectiveness of disaster education has to be enhanced through the coordination of three types of education (Shaw et al, 2011). Therefore, this research aims to study the integrated and synergetic implementation of three modes of education thus institutionalized implementation is suggested. The terminology of “institutionalized” or “institution” refers to a basic norm that society or certain group of people follows so that the action is being taken place as organized system (Hodgson, 2006).

2. METHODOLOGY

The study was conducted in the state of Uttarakhand, India. The state is highly prone to landslide and flood due to the heavy rainfall in monsoon season and earthquake due to the collision of Indian plate into Eurasian plate. The practices of three modes of education were studied through literature reviews and the interviews of 11 governmental agencies, 14 schools, 5 villages, 2 community radio stations.

3. PRACTICES OF THREE MODES OF EDUCATION IN UTTARAKHAND

3.1 Formal education

The formal education in Uttarakhand is provided by state department of education. The constitution of India prescribes the education as a state matter due to the variety of languages and ethnic group through India hence its system and educational contents are different from state to state. Uttarakhand adopts the curriculum of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) which is developed by the autonomous education board of Indian government and its contents are modified into Uttarakhand context. DRR related contents are infused into the subjects of , English, Environmental education, Mathematics, Science and Social science. Especially, the curriculum of social science of class 9 and 10 are modified into local context with the collaboration of DMMC and local NGO. Furthermore, the textbook was elaborated by the DMMC.

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Apart from the curriculum, co-curricular activities are the opportunities to learn the skills to save lives in the situation of natural disasters. First aid training and search and rescue training are observed in some programs such as the scheme of National Social Service (NSS) and Scout and Guide. Besides, role play with DRR topic is also conducted occasionally. The curriculums and co-curricular activities are reviewed and evaluated annually and the evaluation is conducted by the department of education with participation of NGO. There is also institution to provide teacher’s training at state level which is called State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT). The council is a responsible institute for training of Trainers of Teachers (ToT) and the trainers carry out the training directly for teachers at District Institute of Educational Training (DIET). Due to the severe damages from flood and landslide took place in 2013 in the state, DRR components were newly integrated into the teacher’s training although officer stated the unavailability of training material on DRR. Teachers who receive training can give feedback to DIET regarding the contents and its opinion transmit to SCERT. Thus the evaluation of teacher’s training is also periodically conducted in order to reflect the opinion of teachers. Ensuring the safety of school building is also one of the important elements of formal education sector. One national scheme called (SSA) which aims to accomplish the universal and quality education is ongoing. The SSA has a component to construct the school building and all safety measures are applied and design is developed by governmental technical institutions. Although some DRR education is conducted in the state, the policy to promote DRR education is not observed and there was no funding mechanism specific for the promotion of DRR education while SCERT has deployed one person in charge of DRR education training.

3.2 Non-formal education

Non-formal education is provided mainly by Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre (DMMC). DMMC is the autonomous institution of the state government with the aim of addressing issues on disaster related awareness, research and capacity building besides policy implementation and other interventions related to disaster management. The DMMC conducts different types of educational programs for school students and community members. Earthquake awareness program, search and rescue training and first aid training are the major programs carried by DMMC. One of the features of non- formal education is the variety in modalities and methodologies in knowledge transfer therefore DMMC also utilizes different kinds of educational materials. In addition to the materials developed by National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) such as booklets and posters in both English and Hindi language, DMMC prepared movies on landslides in local dialect for children’s awareness. In the collaboration with UNDP, DMMC also developed storytelling booklets on various topics such as landslides, flood, traffic accident and so on. To equip teachers with DRR knowledge, DMMC also delivers teacher’s training. DMMC also promotes the establishment of local group for disaster management and the disaster management plans at community level are also elaborated in some districts. Personnel of DMMC are deployed in different districts of Uttarakhand state and search and rescue training is given to local volunteers and equipment for search and rescue are provided. Community is a first responder of natural disasters thus the education and training to provide knowledge and skills for community is necessary. While there are many activities conducted by DMMC, evaluation and documentation processes are observed challenges. In fact, evaluation and documentation are the process of clarifying

Institutionalization of disaster education in state of Uttarakhand, India October 2015, Kathmandu, Nepal

the effectiveness and points to be improved of each program therefore better programs can be conducted in the following time.

3.3 Informal education

Informal education practice is different from place to place. The study was conducted in , Rudraprayag and . In terms of the common points among study areas, it was found that people tend to obtain the disaster related information through media. Even in the rural area, smart phone and internet are prevailed and people get the information through social networking service such as Whats App and Facebook besides mass media. Obtaining information includes not only the emergency warning, but also do’s and don’ts and sometimes those information are shared to other friends through social medias. In each study area, interviewed community has local knowledge to predict the heavy rainfall and the risk of landslide through the past experience. These local knowledge can be transmitted widely among community members if the strong bond among community members exists. In fact, the various community based activities were organized through the community body such as clean-up project and fair. Random interviews to school students were also conducted and it was identified that students have heard about the past experiences of disasters from their family at home and students usually share the knowledge they learn at school with family. Hence the promotion of DRR education at school can contribute to spread the DRR knowledge even to the community. Apart from these, community radio in Rudraprayag broadcasts community related information. The radio allocated certain amount of time to focus on delivering the knowledge on DRR through the interview of specialist, experience of local people and local knowledge.

4. INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF DRR EDUCATION

Three modes of education were thus studied and some integrated and synergetic implementation beyond the modes of education were observed. Department of education adopted the CBSE curriculum and its contents related to DRR were localized in the context of Uttarakhand disasters. Especially, DMMC which is state authority in disaster management has collaborated to elaborate the textbook for DRR part of social science. This is an example of synergetic implementation of DRR education because DMMC has accumulated data and knowledge on Uttarakhand disasters and these knowledge makes educational contents more practical therefore its effect is enhanced. Other effort to include different stakeholder is as well observed in the mechanism of evaluation at department of education that the periodical review of educational activities are conducted through the participation of NGO. While there is a good example of mechanism for collaboration, there are some aspects which can be improved. Advantage of DMMC is the accumulation of educational materials for students and teachers as mentioned earlier. Since there is a lack of educational materials at DIET, DMMC and formal education sector can increase its collaboration through the joint implementation of teacher’s training on DRR. In terms of informal education, interviews show the tendency that students tell to family what they learn at school. This suggests that improvement of DRR education at school through formal and non-formal education can contribute to increase the informal education at family level. Therefore, it is important to consider the linkage between school and community to enhance the effectiveness of

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DRR education. In addition, media such as community radio and local newspaper function to disseminate the DRR knowledge to community. Therefore, formal, non- formal and informal means of knowledge transfer should be conducted to supplement each other thus duplication of activities can be avoided and the accuracy of DRR information delivered become also practical. To realize the further integrated implementation of three modes of DRR education, it is important to establish a mechanism to promote the communication among stakeholders. For example, both education department and DMMC give training on DRR for teachers and further collaboration can maximize the effect of the practices among stakeholders. In addition, means of informal education such as community radio station can include DRR contents if there is more support of education and disaster related organization. Thus, mechanism to promote the communication is required for further effective implementation of DRR education.

REFERENCES

Coombs, P. H. and Ahmed, M., 1974. Attacking Rural Poverty: How non-formal education can help, John Hopkins University Press. Dib, C. Z., 1988. Formal, non-formal and informal education: concepts/applicability, Cooperative Networks in Physics Education-Conference Proceedings 173, pp. 300-315 Hodgson, Geoffrey M., 2006. ‘What Are Institutions?’, Journal of Economic Issues 40(1), pp. 1-25. Norland, E., 2005. The Nuances of Being ‘Non’: Evaluating Nonformal Education Programs and Settings, New Directions for Evaluation 108, pp.6-12. Shaw, R., Takeuchi, Y., Gwee, Q. R., and Shiwaku, K., 2011. DISASTER EDUCATION: AN INTRODUCTION, Disaster Education: Community, Environment and Disaster Risk Management, pp. 1-22. Tissot, P., 2004. Terminology of vocational training policy, A multilingual glossary for an enlarged Europe, Cedefop. Tudor, S.L., 2013. Formal – Non-formal – Informal in Education. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 5th International Conference EDU-WORLD 2012 - Education Facing Contemporary World Issues 76, 821–826. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.04.213.

Institutionalization of disaster education in state of Uttarakhand, India