- Due to the increasing number of disasters both locally and worldwide, Pakistan is striving to include disaster management education in national curricula at all levels of education. However, the government has a number of challenges, including a lack of policy formation and implementation, skilled teachers, and a lack of a formal curriculum. The main purpose of the conversation is to examine the inclusion of DME in national curricula?
Note that it is not clear that disasters are increasing https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/when-disaster-strikes with thoughts on disaster-related education to be applied to Pakistan:
1. "Using a Spare-Time University for Disaster Risk Reduction Education", chapter 8 in https://www.routledge.com/Learning-and-Calamities-Practices-Interpretations-Patterns/Egner-Schorch-Voss/p/book/9780415334907
2. Disaster education https://doi.org/10.1080/10382046.2011.619810
3. "Using a Spare Time University for Climate Change Education" https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10751-1_16
4. Climate change education, chapter 7 in https://www.routledge.com/Disaster-Management-International-Lessons-in-Risk-Reduction-Response/Lopez-Carresi-Fordham-Wisner-Kelman-Gaillard/p/book/9780415717441
An interesting question (I come to it having supervised Pakistrani doctoral theses which have explored citizenship education policy and practice in the Punjab region of Pakistan in recent years).
I would imagine that there are several dimensions of Disaster Management Education. It could link to existing aspects of the Geography education (e.g. The nature and significance of extreme weather events or geological phenomena such as earthquakes).
As a previous poster has noted, there should be tie-ins to education for sustainability approaches more generally - and climate change education , in particular.
It could also link to 'resiliency'and broader values education.
At the core of citizenship education is the concept of 'community involvement' including learning about 'the common good' and volunteering.
And as communities recover after major disasters then political learning and understanding about the role of different levels of government and how to secure reconstruction funding comes into play.
So it is not just 'Disaster Management' (although preparation and prevention is better than 'cure') but also Disaster Recovery (which we are seeing here in Australia with communities recovering from bush fires or floods).
Hello
I don't know Pakistan's national curriculum and the conditions of Pakistan
so it's just a suggestion (good practices to read?)
In Poland, we have integrated education of this type, we have, among others Education for Safety
The topic is too extensive to say here
but maybe this article will be helpful:
https://thepolicereview.wspol.eu/resources/html/article/details?id=224930
DOI: 10.5604/01.3001.0015.4798
Best regards
This is such a timely topic, not only for Pakistan but for just about any country or area that is facing disasters, and I think that education can be an important part of emergency management.
Would you be teaching in formal settings e.g. schools or would you be teaching informally at a community level? Would there be government involvement? One way to go about this would be to train older students in disaster management and have them work with a community to develop and implement their own specific emergency management plan based on their resources and geography. Earlier comments on linking training to the geography of an area would be effective, as an "all hazards" approach requires time be spent on hazards that would never occur. Cartoons and games could be used to teach young children what to do to if they see signs of danger. The 10 yr old girl who warned beachgoers about the incoming tsunami in Thailand in 2004 had learned about the warning signs in her geography class.
Please note that I use the term "emergency management" and not "disaster management" as I think it is important to incorporate all four concepts of emergency management - risk assessment, mitigation, response, and recovery - in your education curricula, and not just focus on response. Ideally, students would be trained to evaluate whether a hazard could become a disaster, know what options are possible to prevent or minimize the threat, what the appropriate responses are if disaster is inevitable, and how to aid people/communities to recover and return to normal. This is a lot of curriculum to develop. May I suggest you look at the course outline of the Applied Disaster & Emergency Studies at Brandon University https://www.brandonu.ca/ades/courses/? The faculty are internationally trained and have a wealth of experience.
Good luck!
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