Education and Natural Disasters

David Smawfield, Colin Brock

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781441165138
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Comparative Education

What is the relationship between education and natural disasters? Can education play a role in ameliorating and mitigating them, preparing people in how to respond, and even helping to prevent them? If so, how? Drawing on research carried out in a number of different countries, including Australia, China, India, Japan, the UK and the USA, the contributors consider the role of education in relation to natural disasters. The case studies expand conceptual and empirical understandings of the understudied relationship between education and natural disasters and uncover the potential and the limitations of education for mitigating, responding to, and potentially preventing, natural disasters. The contributors also consider the extent to which so-called natural disasters, such as mudslides caused by deforestation and flooding areas built on known flood plains, are linked to human behaviour and how education can impact on these.

Education and Natural Disasters: A Selective Overview David Smawfield

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Chapter Outline

Introduction

Setting the Context, Terminology and Scope

Policy and Institutional Frameworks

School Response

School Buildings and Safety

Education and Natural Disasters Curriculum Content and Approaches in the School Milieu

The Roles of Teachers in Disaster Response

Non-Formal and Informal Education, Including Public Education

The Role and Contribution of the Private Sector, Including Public/Private Partnerships

Further and Higher Education

The Role of Research

Conclusions

Acknowledgement

Questions for Further Consideration

Suggestions for Further Reading

References

Introduction

With a subject as broad as ‘education and natural disasters’, any attempt to offer a comprehensive overview in just one chapter can only be selective. Nevertheless, an attempt is made here to provide as broad an introduction as possible in relation to some main perspectives, themes and modalities. These include: policy and institutional frameworks; school response; school buildings and safety; education and natural disasters curriculum content and approaches in the school milieu; the role of teachers in disaster response; non-formal and informal education, including public education; the role and contribution of the private sector, including public/ private partnerships; further and higher education; and the role of research. An attempt is also made to acknowledge aspects that are not covered here, and where there are information gaps and potential areas for future investigation.

In the researching of this chapter, very interesting patterns, with potential policy implications, were discovered in an analysis of programmes of higher education promoted through a key internet portal. In view of their adjudged importance and possible contribution to knowledge, these patterns are discussed in slightly greater detail compared to other areas examined. Before proceeding with any of the above, however, it will be helpful to take further steps to set the subject context, including reference to terminology and scope.

Setting the Context, Terminology and Scope

A definition for the term ‘Natural Disaster’ is somewhat elusive. Not all major dictionaries include the phrase. However, Webster’s Online Dictionary, which claims to be the World’s largest dictionary, defines natural disasters as: ‘sudden calamitous events producing great material damage, loss and distress. They are the result of natural phenomena such as earthquakes, floods etc.’ This is as workable a definition as any and will be assumed as the basic understanding of the term from which to pursue a discussion in rather more depth. However, a rather important semantic position, which should not be ignored, in view of the importance of the source, is that of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). It takes the view that ‘there is no such thing as a “natural” disaster, only natural hazards’ (UNISDR, 2011b).

Among the more familiar natural hazards, which can lead to ‘natural disasters’, according to the understanding of the term being developed here, are: avalanche, cold wave, cyclone, drought, earthquake, epidemic, flood, heat wave, insect infestation, land slide, mud flow, storm, storm surge, tornado, tsunami, volcano and wild fire. These are the categorisations for natural hazards used by the United Nations itself. However, even this list is not exhaustive. Other sources will include potential space hazards such as meteoric impact events, solar flares and gamma ray bursts. There are also other more obscure earthly hazards that could be included such as ‘limnic eruptions’: a rare type of natural disaster in which carbon dioxide or other gases suddenly erupt from deep lake water, suffocating wildlife, livestock and humans. The most notorious event of this kind (and only the second ever recorded) occurred in 1986 in Lake Nyos: a crater lake in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. The eruption asphyxiated over 1,700 people.

In building an understanding of the term ‘natural disaster’ a stage further, it is important to consider root causes. Those of a religious persuasion might infer an ‘act of God’. Even to those without faith, the conventional understanding of a ‘natural disaster’ has been that it is something ‘caused by factors extraneous to man’ (Burton and Kates, 1964: 43, quoted in Boehn, 1996: 35). However, as Boehn goes on eloquently to argue, and with which the current writer would agree, the term arguably needs to encompass a newer dimension: man-made natural disasters. The examples Boehn provides include: alpine landslides caused by building too many ski lifts; desertification as a result of too much livestock husbandry, and the consequences of the greenhouse effect caused by emissions of chlorofluorocarbons. In taking this particular stance, it therefore follows that education needs to go beyond acceptance of natural disasters and preparedness, mitigation and response, but must also play a role in natural disaster prevention – especially where root causes can be traced to the behaviour of mankind.

In some definitions of the term ‘natural disaster’ there need to be significant direct human consequences, such as heavy loss of life and/or destruction and damage of property. However, the loss of coral reefs due to ocean overheating and activities of man, the extinction of animal species or the deaths of millions of seabirds and other marine life as a result of oil spillages, toxic waste disposal and habitat destruction are all disasters of and for nature. Arguably, such disasters ought also to be embraced by the term ‘natural disasters’ – especially in the context of this book, where an important consideration is the role that education can play in prevention, mitigation and understanding of the causal relationships that can lead to disasters involving nature and natural forces. In summary, then, it is concluded and accepted here that a ‘natural disaster’ is something that involves substantial human, economic or environmental loss.

One of the most important findings that emerge from a review of the literature on natural disasters, especially in view of some of the discussion to follow, is that risks from natural disasters are not spread equally across the globe. Moreover, the impact of such disasters when they do occur is often not shouldered equally by all sections of society. For instance, one proxy indicator of disaster prevalence comprises World Bank statistics cited in Dilley et al. (2005) on emergency loans and reallocation of existing loans to meet disaster reconstruction needs from 1980 through 2003. According to these data:

total emergency lending and loan reallocation from 1980 through 2003 was $14.4 billion. Of this, $12 billion went to the top 20 countries: India, Turkey, Bangladesh, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Poland, Colombia, Iran, Honduras, China, Chile, Zimbabwe, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Algeria, Ecuador, Mozambique, Philippines and Vietnam.

(Dilley et al., 2005: 23–4)

Cavallo and Noy point out that:

the overwhelming majority of people affected and killed by natural disasters reside in developing countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. . . . 96% of the people killed and 99% of the people affected by natural disasters over the period 1970–2008 were in the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America and the Caribbean, or Africa.

(Cavallo and Noy, 2010: 11)

Research undertaken separately by Toya and Skidmore used ‘disaster impact data over time to examine the degree to which the human and economic losses from natural disasters are reduced as economies develop’ (Toya and Skidmore, 2007: 1). It found that ‘countries with higher income, higher educational attainment, greater openness, more complete financial systems and smaller government experience fewer losses’ (ibid.: 1). Crucially, they also point to the fact that educational attainment is one of the key variables inversely correlated with deaths caused by natural disasters (ibid.: 6).

Gitter and Barham examined ‘the impact on secondary school attainment in rural Honduras of four key variables affecting household choices: wealth, credit access, crop choice and shocks’ (Gitter and Barham, 1999: 1). The shock in question in this particular case study was ‘Hurricane Mitch’, the most powerful hurricane of the 1998 Atlantic hurricane season, which badly affected Honduras. Their research ‘results show directly that credit-rationed households hit by a shock were likely to remove their children from school’. Furthermore, ‘credit-constrained households have lower educational attainment and are more likely to be adversely affected by negative shocks’ (ibid.: 11).

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP):

Women, girls, boys and men belonging to different age and socio-economic strata have distinct vulnerabilities, and this shapes the way they experience disaster, and also their ability to recover from it. In countries where gender discrimination is tolerated, women and girls are particularly vulnerable to natural hazards. Not only is the percentage of women and girls who die higher in these countries, but the incidence of gender-based violence – including rape, human trafficking and domestic abuse – is also known to increase exponentially during and after disasters. Most disasters place an undue burden on women and girls who are responsible for unpaid work such as providing care, water and food for households.

(UNDP, 2010: 1)

The same source cites the facts that ‘disasters lower women’s life expectancy more than men’s’ and that ‘women, boys and girls are 14 times more likely than men to die during a disaster’ (ibid.: 2).

With regard to the term ‘Education’, the same dictionary source quoted above defines the word as: ‘the activities of educating or instructing . . . that impart knowledge or skill’. This broad definition will also be adopted for the purposes of this book. However, in view of what is to follow, it is also helpful to disaggregate some of the more important sub-forms that education can take, including types of activity and modality. Three such crucial sub-terms commonly used are ‘formal education’, ‘non-formal education’ and ‘informal education’. In terms of further disaggregation, which can cross-cut these last three mentioned terms, it is worth distinguishing between public sector and private sector education; between profit and not-for-profit modalities; and government and non-government approaches – and all of which are again not necessarily mutually exclusive.

It is useful, too, to conceptualise different permutations for transacting education by considering ‘who does the learning and who does the teaching?’ There are many interesting possibilities. It should not necessarily be assumed that experts have a monopoly of knowledge. For example: indigenous knowledge can be sought, recognised and built upon as part of a disaster risk-reduction strategy. Possibilities of this kind are exemplified in Shaw et al. (2009). Moreover, in the Indian context, it has been demonstrated (AIDMI, 2011) how community-to-community learning can play a role in helping affected communities share their experiences and learn from each other. This Indian example pertains to how experience was shared from Bihar to Tamil Nadu.

‘Child-to-child’ education has been recognised as a powerful model in many contexts over many years. (See, for example, Child-to-Child Trust, 2011). It has equally great potential in the context of education and natural disasters. However, this modality does appear under-represented among current practical resource literature. For example, no child-to-child themed titles were to be found among the more than 240 ‘Education and School Safety’ related practical resources within the ‘Documents and Publications’ section of the...

Table of contents

• FC
• Also available in the Education as a Humanitarian Response Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Foreword
• 1 Education and Natural Disasters: A Selective Overview
• 2 Bushfires in Australia: Learning to Live with Fire
• 3 Natural Hazards in India: Forewarned is Forearmed
• 4 Hurricane Katrina in the United States: Make Levees, Not War
• 5 Floods in the United Kingdom: School Perspectives
• 6 Earthquake in China: A Sichuan Case Study
• 7 Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster in Japan: The Immediate Aftermath
• Conclusion
• Index