Disaster Education in Indonesia, Beyond Challenge and Opportunity
By Yuniarti Wahyuningtyas
Indonesia
is one of the developed countries in the world that is well known for its
experiences in dealing with multi disaster events. This is triggered by its geographic and socio-economic
conditions that make it vulnerable to various hazards. GFDRR ranks Indonesia as
12th among countries at relatively high mortalities risks from multi hazards[1]. Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, landslides, floods and
droughts, all have an impact on Indonesian populations, infrastructures and
economies. Located in the ring of fire, Indonesia is one of the most vulnerable
countries for geology-related disasters. Volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis
frequently occur in Indonesia. For the last 10 years, medium to big scale
earthquakes with significant losses and damages often happened.
In
term of disaster management, Indonesia is one of the signatory of Hyogo
Framework 2005 and also its President is awarded for Disaster Risk Reduction
Championship by UNISDR,for its significant works in improving disaster
management in Indonesia. This achievement is resulted from the rapid growing of
national policies and regulations that are institutionalized disaster
management as part government priorities. These policies and regulations,
including: the publishment of Disaster Management Law Number 24 Year 2007, the
establishment of disaster management agency through Presidential Regulation
Number 8 Year 2008, and the complimentary regulations on disaster funding and
aid relief, role of international organization on disaster management, and ?.
The National Disaster Management Agency, hereinafter known as 0 BNPB also
published 2 national plan on disaster amangement, which are Natioanl Plan on
Disaster Management or NPDM and National Action Plan on DRR or NAP-DRR.
Furthermore, recently, Government of Indonesia has also created more than 400
BPBDs (Provincial and District Disaster Management Agency) at province and
district level. Unfortunately the quality of most BPBDs at district level is
still weak, and they are not ready yet for emergency preparedness and response.
Though
function of BNPB and BPBD is for coordinator for disaster management, several technical
ministries including Ministry of Education assumed that disaster management is
responsibility of BNPB. Therefore, disaster management has not been prioritized
by technical ministries such as Education ministry.
Disaster events that happened
in Indonesia not just damaged the houses, but also public facilities,
including: worship places, health facilities and schools. As for schools,
according to the data from BNPB shows the following number of schools that were
affected by disasters:
No
|
Disaster
Event
|
Year
|
# Damaged Schools
|
1
|
Aceh
Earthquake and Tsunami
|
2004
|
750
|
2
|
Yogyakarta
Earthquake
|
2006
|
2,900
|
3
|
West
Java Earthquake
|
2009
|
2,091
|
4
|
West
Sumatera Earthquake
|
2009
|
1,917
|
5
|
Earthquake
Mentawai
|
2010
|
7
|
The
number that is shown on the table above excludes the small scale disasters that
are frequently happened across Indonesia and damaged the school infrastructures
and buildings.
National Disaster Management
Agency recognized that they need to improve disaster management for education.
Four out of seven priorities of program number 3 in the National Disaster
Management Plan (Research, Education and Training) are closely related to capacity
development for schools. They are: 1) Integrating disaster management knowledge
into school curriculum; 2) Implementing disaster preparedness program in
schools; 3) Capacity building for disaster education; and 4) Learning and
knowledge sharing between region and with other countries. Focus priorities and
their indicative budget are as follows:
Table
Focus Priorities and Indicative Budget (Source: Annex –
National Disaster Management Plan 2010-2014, BNPB 2010)
PRIORITIES
|
TARGET
|
MAIN
INSTITUTIONS
|
INDICATIVE
BUDGET (RP)
|
3.3.
Integrating disaster management knowledge into school curriculum
|
School
curriculum in national and regional level incorporate disaster Ministry of
National
|
5
billion
|
|
Education
|
|||
management
materials.
|
|||
3.4.
Implementing disaster preparedness program in schools.
|
275
disaster-prepared schools in 275 districts/cities implement disaster
preparedness programs.
|
Ministry
of National Education
|
5.5
billion
|
3.5.
Capacity building for disaster education
|
Training
for 4000 teachers and community figures in 33 provinces
|
Ministry
of National Education
|
20
billion
|
3.6.
Learning and knowledge sharing between region and with other countries
|
Five
annual National CBDRM Workshops; International Workshops (once every two
years)
|
BNPB
|
10
billion
|
Though BNPB has developed their
strategy, it is difficult for them to implement it as they don’t
have authorization to push education ministry and schools to deliver the
program. Autonomy and decentralization have a significant impact on
relationship across ministries and across national to provincial and regional
level. Districts and schools are given more autonomy and Ministry of Education
adopts School based management approach. School based management aimed to
improve school quality, based on national education policies and regulations.
School-based management is a school management model which gives greater autonomy to school, in terms of authority and responsibility. In School based management, school is given authority and responsibility to make necessary decisions to better meet the needs and capacity of local community, stakeholders, and the school itself. The education system is relatively decentralized and there is a certain amount of flexibility in how to deliver at a local level. Decentralization in education refers to transfers of decision-making authority, which encourage bottom-up approach and community participation. Main characteristic of decentralization in education is the involvement of parents and community in determining education policies. These two components work together with school to plan and solve education problems, and to improve education quality.Therefore, it is necessary to approach schools and authority such as BPBD and Ministry of Education at district level.
On
the other hand, few stakeholders from local to international agencies support
implementation disaster management in Education. Some of them are registered in
different initiatives and different ministries/department. Not all of them are
registered with Ministry of Education. For a moment, though they are inactive,
most of the agencies are member of at least 3 initiatives, these include: the Education Cluster, The Consortium for Disaster Education (CDE), and the National Secretariat for Safe School. Education Cluster as one of the IASC clusters is co-led by UNICEF and Save the Children. Its core activities are not limited to provide education services during emergency, but also to improve and strengthen the government and non-government agencies for better preparedness. Its field of works covers : response, coordination, capacity building, knowledge development and Information management. Currently It has 17 members, including BNPB, Ministry of Education and Cultural, and Ministry of Religion Affairs, also UN Agency, International, National, and local NGOs. In term of preparedness and capacity building, the education cluster through its co-leads and members have conducted several activities to support the implementation of education in emergencies and ensuring that it is part of national and local government priorities.
Save the Children, as the co-lead for Education Clusters, recently implemented Education in emergencies Capacity Building (EIE-CB) Project that was implemented in 9 Asia and Pacific Countries, including: Bangladesh, Fiji, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philipine, Solomon, Timur Leste, Vietnam, and Vanuatu. For Indonesia, this project was implemented for 3 years, since 2011 to 2013 and it is an honor for me to take the lead for the project during its end period. The EiE CB was intended to strengthen the capacity of government and non-government agencies for better preparedness in emergencies, as well providing the capacity for Save the Children to provide the Last Resort. This project at first was developed with strong partnership with UNICEF, yet due to the time constraint, Save the Children took the lead in approaching the government as well to improve the Education Cluster members' skills and knowledge through training and dissemination information.
In its last year of the project implementation, Save the Children has conducted various trainings (Education in Emergencies Minimum Standard, Front Line Responder, Education in Emergencies, and School Disaster Management), also organized various dialogues and public awareness on School Disaster Management with coverage areas, including: Jakarta, East Java, NTB and NTT. Simultaneously, this project also provided technical assistance to Ministry of Education and Cultural, BPBD and also Ministry of Coastal and Fisheries. One of the framework that was used as a standpoint for the EiE CB Project implementation was the Comprehensive School Safety Framework. This framework was developed by UNICEF, UNESCO, WB-GFDRR, Save the Children (SCI) and Plan International to support a Global Alliance for Comprehensive School Safety, to develop normative guidance and models to support scale-up school safety, based on the three-pillar of Comprehensive School Safety Framework. These pillars, include: safe school facilities, school disaster management, and education risk reduction. Save the Children through its EiE-CB Project was mainly focused on School Disaster Management, whereas a combination for improving disaster and education planning, as well as their capacity. With only 9 months left, i managed to implemented 5 trainings, 1 socialization event, 2 public workshops, and 1 consultative workshop, also involved actively in providing technical assistance to NDMO, MoEC, MoCaF,and several province authorities.
The activities that i had last years were excited, thrilling, also funtastic. I have an opportunity to promote disaster education to nation wide and also to visit several provincea in eastern part of Indonesia. With assistance and help from 2 interns, and 1 senior consultant, i am grateful that this project ended well, with all of its report shared to partners and public and even managed to have the evaluation meeting near the end of its perid. some lesson learnt that i want to highlight here is that no matter how short of your project period or limited fund that you have, it is very important to be open to public about your project and develop strong partnership with different agencoes at national and provincial levels.these will help you to absorb the fund wisely and of course as part of public transparancy and accountability, also it is very important to have a good communication and reporting, because nevertheless a good project is a project that can give influence and lesson to others. One thing that i regret was that the lack support from the internal management of organization that fail to meet with the sustainable plan of this project. there were supposed to be a strong team that can develop this model and replicate it to another project, instead the organization only offered consultant position to wrap up the donor report. Until now, i am still hoping that there will be another great opportunity is given to continue the lesson that this project has resulted within 3 yeqrs of its implementation with more tangible output and reach more vulnerable groups as its beneficieries.
Save the Children, as the co-lead for Education Clusters, recently implemented Education in emergencies Capacity Building (EIE-CB) Project that was implemented in 9 Asia and Pacific Countries, including: Bangladesh, Fiji, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philipine, Solomon, Timur Leste, Vietnam, and Vanuatu. For Indonesia, this project was implemented for 3 years, since 2011 to 2013 and it is an honor for me to take the lead for the project during its end period. The EiE CB was intended to strengthen the capacity of government and non-government agencies for better preparedness in emergencies, as well providing the capacity for Save the Children to provide the Last Resort. This project at first was developed with strong partnership with UNICEF, yet due to the time constraint, Save the Children took the lead in approaching the government as well to improve the Education Cluster members' skills and knowledge through training and dissemination information.
In its last year of the project implementation, Save the Children has conducted various trainings (Education in Emergencies Minimum Standard, Front Line Responder, Education in Emergencies, and School Disaster Management), also organized various dialogues and public awareness on School Disaster Management with coverage areas, including: Jakarta, East Java, NTB and NTT. Simultaneously, this project also provided technical assistance to Ministry of Education and Cultural, BPBD and also Ministry of Coastal and Fisheries. One of the framework that was used as a standpoint for the EiE CB Project implementation was the Comprehensive School Safety Framework. This framework was developed by UNICEF, UNESCO, WB-GFDRR, Save the Children (SCI) and Plan International to support a Global Alliance for Comprehensive School Safety, to develop normative guidance and models to support scale-up school safety, based on the three-pillar of Comprehensive School Safety Framework. These pillars, include: safe school facilities, school disaster management, and education risk reduction. Save the Children through its EiE-CB Project was mainly focused on School Disaster Management, whereas a combination for improving disaster and education planning, as well as their capacity. With only 9 months left, i managed to implemented 5 trainings, 1 socialization event, 2 public workshops, and 1 consultative workshop, also involved actively in providing technical assistance to NDMO, MoEC, MoCaF,and several province authorities.
The activities that i had last years were excited, thrilling, also funtastic. I have an opportunity to promote disaster education to nation wide and also to visit several provincea in eastern part of Indonesia. With assistance and help from 2 interns, and 1 senior consultant, i am grateful that this project ended well, with all of its report shared to partners and public and even managed to have the evaluation meeting near the end of its perid. some lesson learnt that i want to highlight here is that no matter how short of your project period or limited fund that you have, it is very important to be open to public about your project and develop strong partnership with different agencoes at national and provincial levels.these will help you to absorb the fund wisely and of course as part of public transparancy and accountability, also it is very important to have a good communication and reporting, because nevertheless a good project is a project that can give influence and lesson to others. One thing that i regret was that the lack support from the internal management of organization that fail to meet with the sustainable plan of this project. there were supposed to be a strong team that can develop this model and replicate it to another project, instead the organization only offered consultant position to wrap up the donor report. Until now, i am still hoping that there will be another great opportunity is given to continue the lesson that this project has resulted within 3 yeqrs of its implementation with more tangible output and reach more vulnerable groups as its beneficieries.
