LATEST NEWS:
Career
Storms lash education sector
Dean, Gustav cause 900 million in damage
BY LUKE DOUGLAS Career & Education writer editorial@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, November 01, 2009
THE education sector is one of the most vulnerable to the effects of storm-related events, resulting in widespread destruction and dislocation to children's education, a senior government technocrat has said.
 |
| Dr Pauline Knight (Photo: Bryan Cummings) |
Hurricane Dean and Tropical Storm Gustav, in 2007 and 2008 respectively, inflicted more than $900 million dollars in damage to the education sector alone, Dr Pauline Knight, acting director general of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) said on Monday.
"The education sector is one of the most vulnerable to any form of natural disaster because of its size in terms of the number of schools and students, its coverage, the geographic location of educational facilities and age and design feature of some of the structures," she said, speaking at the opening of a two-day meeting of regional experts on disaster risk reduction in the education sector in the Caribbean. "During Hurricane Dean in 2007, some 518 public education facilities were damaged to the tune of $727 million, while during Tropical Storm Gustav, 56 schools were damaged at a cost of $200 million. This included damage to roofs, structures, sanitary facilities, furniture, laboratories, libraries, books and retaining walls."
Knight added that schools being used as shelters "pose another set of factors, including additional damage by individuals, vandalism and disruption of classes".
The meeting, which ended Tuesday at the PIOJ's offices in Kingston was staged by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Knight urged regional leaders to "put processes in place to build the resilience of the education sector" by hazard resilient construction of new schools, phased retrofitting of existing buildings, the development of protocols for use of schools as shelters, and cross sectoral links to reduce disruption of learning.
At the same time, she disclosed that there have been nine storm-related events in Jamaica over the last eight years, with a cost to the economy of $99.2 billion or an average of two per cent of gross domestic product annually. This money, Knight said, could have been better spent on infrastructure, modernising agriculture and health care.
Meanwhile, executive director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency Jeremy Collymore, in his remarks, said the education sector is "the critical bridge to the building of a culture of disaster risk reduction".
He noted that CDEMA's work included a framework for the development of a diploma in disaster management studies; a manual for administrators in the education sector on disaster risk reduction in schools; and the development of resource materials for teachers and students at Caribbean Secondary School Education Certificate and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations levels.
Six Caribbean countries, several UN agencies and educational institutions were represented at the meeting.
Other Stories
Players in education welcome Grace McLean
Redundancy and the working partner
Mico opens improved diagnosic centre in St Ann
Occupational hazards abound in the classroom
Sandals promotes health, wellness at the workplace
Scotiabank youth debaters become advocates for HIV/AIDS awareness
Project management training necessary
Four awarded Renald Mason scholarships
Work as a self-defence instructor
RSS Feeds