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New Insights of Education Sector from East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
Abstract
This chapter discuss about education sector’s role and management through experience of East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Education sector’s main role is to provide proper education to the future citizens. Public schools are located in the community, and therefore, community people have certain level of recognition to school in the regular time as well as in the emergency time. It is often considered to be contradicted that if school becomes a shelter, how to continue the education. School as the core vital community infrastructure becomes the shelter for natural reasons. However, how to continue education during the post disaster is also important. Thus, the education in emergency becomes of utmost importance, and the school manual should be modified to reflect these lessons. Locations of the school, its structure, function, layout all become very important for countries like Japan, which has long coast line and relatively less flat areas. Thus, it becomes very important that the E-HFA (Hyogo framework for Action for Education sector) is properly realized and practiced in local governments in the high-risk areas.
... In Kamaishi City, 99.8% of elementary and junior high school students evacuated safely because of the disaster prevention education that encourages children to think for themselves. For proactive safety education, refer to Shaw and Takeuchi [5], Teramoto [6] and Yamori [7]. 3 Safety promotion means to prevent accidents and crimes with cross-occupation or cross-sector cooperation or with intervention that can be scientifically evaluated. Schools that are conducting activities linked to local-level safety promotion initiatives promoted by a collaborating center of the World Health Organization (WHO) are certified as international safety schools (ISS). ...
... Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) 4 means "education to nurture citizens having a global perspective who can recognize the finite nature of resources on the earth at an individual level and create new social orders based on their own thinking. 5 " As a total of 15 strategic themes from three perspectives are set for ESD, organically connecting themes in wide-ranging areas are crucial in studying the shape of safety education [16]. In other words, challenges for sustainable society (e.g., the environment, poverty, human rights, peace, development) are so complex that it is crucial to handle challenges in different areas, such as the environment, society and economy, in a holistic manner [17]. ...
... 4 The description of ESD in this paper is based on the content on MEXT website explaining "What is education for sustainable development (ESD)?" [15]. 5 The importance of organizing concepts, as this paper attempts to do, in developing such interdisciplinary safety education programs can be seen in the arguments on the development of safety education programs around the world. One example, which focuses on the area of traffic, is a report on a study conducted on traffic safety education in 25 EU countries in 2005 [27]. ...
This paper studies modes of safety education, that is, education required for the development of a safe and secure society (i.e., a resilient and sustainable society), particularly in the context of Japan. In addition, this paper aims to verify what kind of safety education should be provided through the new educational concept of “Education for Sustainable Development” (ESD). In recent years, Japan has suffered a number of serious incidents in school zones, cases of children being kidnapped or killed, as well as the damage caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake & Tsunami of March 11, 2011, and other natural disasters. Consequently, the safety and security of children has become the responsibility of society as a whole, not just of educators. Based on this awareness, this paper will discuss a new mode of safety education that can contribute to the design of mobility for the coming age.
There are two main findings from this study. First, the paper identifies the need to provide multiple software support for existing safety education. Few safety education programs have sufficiently incorporated the perspective of understanding safety in a comprehensive manner, instead focusing on a particular area of traffic, disasters, or daily life. In light of this issue, this paper recognizes the importance of incorporating the perspective of problem-solving and participation-oriented ESD into a holistic understanding of safety education. Second, awareness surveys conducted by the author on parents and teachers revealed that the respondents demonstrated a high interest traffic safety relative to other safety education areas. It would thus appear to be possible to make “traffic” the starting point for safety education and then broaden the scope to daily life and disasters. The survey also clarified that related parties considered raising children's awareness to be the most important aspect in safety education.
This paper concludes that it is imperative to make continued research efforts to present a new mode of safety education, an initiative that represents one of the important efforts in designing mobility for the future.
... In contrast, the fatality number in Iran increased from 308 persons per million pre-1960 to 2970 since the 1980s because of the weak enforcement of building codes. Other researchers further support the argument that urbanization provides a reduction in earthquake mortality risk by improving: (1) the technology for sending earthquake alerts (Suárez et al. 2009); (2) knowledge about mitigating seismic risk (Takeuchi and Shaw 2014); and (3) access to shelter during earthquakes (Alçada-Almeida et al. 2009). ...
Urbanization can be a challenge and an opportunity for earthquake risk mitigation. However, little is known about the changes in exposure (for example, population and urban land) to earthquakes in the context of global urbanization, and their impacts on fatalities in earthquake-prone areas. We present a global analysis of the changes in population size and urban land area in earthquake-prone areas from 1990 to 2015, and their impacts on earthquake-related fatalities. We found that more than two thirds of population growth (or 70% of total population in 2015) and nearly three quarters of earthquake-related deaths (or 307,918 deaths) in global earthquake-prone areas occurred in developing countries with an urbanization ratio (percentage of urban population to total population) between 20 and 60%. Holding other factors constant, population size was significantly and positively associated with earthquake fatalities, while the area of urban land was negatively related. The results suggest that fatalities increase for areas where the urbanization ratio is low, but after a ratio between 40 and 50% occurs, earthquake fatalities decline. This finding suggests that the resistance of building and infrastructure is greater in countries with higher urbanization ratios and highlights the need for further investigation. Our quantitative analysis is extended into the future using Shared Socioeconomic Pathways to reveal that by 2050, more than 50% of the population increase in global earthquake-prone areas will take place in a few developing countries (Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh) that are particularly vulnerable to earthquakes. To reduce earthquake-induced fatalities, enhanced resilience of buildings and urban infrastructure generally in these few countries should be a priority.
... On the other side the memory, education and awareness of occurred and potential tsunami disasters may be decisive in the preparation of the public (Frankenberg et al., 2013;Takeuchi, & Shaw, 2014;Benadusi, 2014). There has been statistical evidence of the degree of education and preparedness about natural disasters including tsunamis (Shaw et al., 2006;Muttarak, & Pothisiri, 2013;Esteban et al., 2013;Karanikola et al., 2015;Bronfman et al., 2016). ...
*Corresponding author: ttoulkeridis@espe.edu.ec
In the last two decades, the vulnerability of coastal populations to the occurrence of natural phenomena such as tsunamis has increased, among other hazards that have existed throughout the development of civilizations and have constantly kept at risk the resources that a population needs for its development. The current study presents a representative sample of the perception of the population regarding the possibility of the occurrence of a natural phenomenon such as the tsunami on the Panamanian coasts. Although Panama is not at the top of the list of countries with high risk of current tsunamis, it does maintain an index that must be considered for the development of prevention strategies, so it is necessary to determine the perception of the population in order to execute contingency plans. The performed survey clearly demonstrates the poor preparation of the Panamanian population and the need for a drastic increase in the carrying out of all kinds of preventive activities towards tsunamis and their respective hazards.
Purpose
Foreign residents in Japan are classified as one vulnerable group at risk of disasters. Therefore, various measures are in place to engage, educate and offer first-hand experiences of disaster countermeasures required to overcome systematic disaster preparedness problems. However, the need for Japan to prevent the spread and infection of COVID-19 has necessitated measures that prohibit public gatherings and other social activities. This study aims to look at how these arrangements have impacted public engagement approaches to disaster preparedness for foreign residents within the Tokyo Metropolitan Area.
Design/methodology/approach
This study identifies local organizations and examines their methods of engagement that enhance the disaster preparedness of foreign residents in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The activities are examined in the context of when there was no COVID-19 pandemic and the current state of the pandemic. A change in activities attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic is then extracted and explained through field surveys and interviews with the relevant organization.
Findings
This study reveals that most disaster preparedness activities were best accomplished through in-person engagements. Nevertheless, online engagements have become the alternative option because of COVID-19 infection prevention. This change has widen the coverage of some activities but major setbacks include events cancelations and technical and technological challenges attributed to using online platforms.
Research limitations/implications
This study did not examine the effectiveness of pre-COVID-19 pandemic engagement approaches and current changes attributed to the pandemic; many public engagement literatures acknowledge success to include the number of participants, the abilities of organizations to find ways to effectively and positively engage their stakeholders for meaningful partnerships, the number of clicks, access to a website and comments made online. Therefore, as organizations in this study have shown a glimpse of the above characteristics, there are indications of some level of effectiveness in their engagement approaches even amid a pandemic.
Practical implications
To avoid such situations in the future, there is the need for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, local governments and associated organizations to develop public engagement approaches that are flexible to resist or cope with in-person, remote encounters, or sudden circumstances that could potentially derail planned activities.
Social implications
The most effects attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic are the cancelation of many disaster drill exercises, community disaster walks, training of volunteers for foreign residents’ assistance and many hours of “Yasashii Nihongo” lesson. The cancelation of activities is a setback to the efforts of self-help and mutual aid campaigns by authorities to reduce the impacts of disasters.
Originality/value
The spirit of inclusion has been an embodiment of disaster management approaches in Japan for years for which policy recognitions have been tagged along the dimensions of public aid, self-help and mutual aid. These are aimed at engaging the populace, especially foreign residents in disaster training and exercises, language study and other communal activities for disaster preparedness. However, to prevent the spread of COVID-19, there have been a series of restrictions on gathering and inter-personal public engagement activities in Japan. As foreigners are classified as the most vulnerable to disaster in Japan, it is important to understand how these restrictions will/are affecting the efforts of integration and disaster preparedness, which are a crucial part of the Government’s effort to reduce casualties and damage in the anticipated Nankai megathrust earthquake. Besides the results being useful for government interventions, it also adds to the knowledge of the repercussion of COVID-19 and how to plan for emergencies.
This paper investigates the prominent failure modes of educational facilities by using field observations. Specifically, damage to the roof covering, roof structure and exterior windows were quantified. An archetype of these structures is modeled in a Monte Carlo Simulation wherein the probabilistic resistance capacities of the building envelope components are compared to their corresponding probabilistic wind loads. The probability of exceedance is then evaluated at three levels of damage state per 3-s gust wind speeds. For the vulnerability curve, the results were fitted into a cumulative probability density function with a mean of 4.7314 and a standard deviation of 0.4061. The results of the model are then evaluated through a case study of Typhoon Nina 2016. The model generally underpredicts the mean damage ratio per municipality by about 13.17% for wind speeds of 40.225 m/s and by about 3-6% for wind speeds between 49 m/s to 71 m/s. The reported damage by the respective government authorities were aggregated on a municipality level and compared to the performance of the model. A statistical analysis between the reported and mean predicted damage was also done by using the spearman rank correlation coefficient. The results yielded a positive correlation of 0.856.
Despite the controversy regarding their use, school buildings are often assigned as emergency evacuation shelters, temporary accommodation and aid distribution hubs following disasters. This paper presents a methodology to compare the relative suitability of different school buildings for these purposes by using the analytical hierarchy process to weight criteria based on the combined opinions of relevant experts and combine these with descriptive scores from surveyed buildings. The aggregated weights show that approximately equal weighting should be given to the hard characteristics (hazard at location and physical vulnerability) and soft characteristics (accessibility, communications, living environment, access to supplies). As well as immediate safety, conditions for inhabitation are important so that displaced persons are not discouraged from evacuating to shelters and shelter life is not detrimental to health and well-being. The study allows an optimal selection of school buildings used as shelters before and after a disaster and highlights where most improvement could be made with relatively little time and resources for both individual buildings and the whole study area. This method was applied to Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines, an area exposed to floods, windstorms and earthquakes, but can be adapted for other local contexts and building types. Among the 38 school buildings surveyed, we identified key areas for improvement as being insufficient pedestrian access for evacuation at night and for those with mobility constraints, and a lack of alternate spaces for evacuee activities leading to interference with education.
This presentation outlines research into the challenges affecting the reconstruction of schools in Nepal following the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, and initial insights into some of the practices that have been implemented in order to overcome or mitigate these challenges, and work to 'Build Back Better'.
Today, the environment surrounding children is changing dramatically. A review of children’s situations from the perspectives of “safety” and “security” will reveal various kinds of risks, including traffic, crime, and disaster. Do children have sufficient capabilities to respond to such risks? If not, how can they acquire these capabilities? With these interests and based on a holistic understanding of safety, this chapter studies the shape of safety education, that is, education required for the development of a safe and secure society (i.e., a resilient and sustainable society), particularly in the context of Japan. In addition to that objective, this chapter aims to verify what kind of safety education should be provided through the new educational concept of “Education for Sustainable Development” (ESD).
School buildings must be resilient during hazardous events like earthquakes so that the important functions of the school will not be affected. During disasters, schools have an added value and important function in post-disaster activities. Schools are often used as evacuation centers. When schools are damaged, the school’s mission of continuous delivery of education will be disrupted. Due to the inadequate number of structures in our country which are intended for evacuation during disasters, schools have been used in some cases as evacuation centers, again disrupting the school’s operations. To assure that school buildings will be operational in times of disaster, structural vulnerability assessment and appropriate retrofitting must be carried out. Due to budgetary constraints in most schools, a prioritization scheme must be devised to identify the buildings that must be given immediate attention. A rapid visual screening on the structural vulnerability due to earthquake hazards can be done and then rank the buildings for more detailed inspection and retrofitting. To refine the screening and ranking, the functional asset value of the buildings can be used as a second criterion. In a post-disaster scenario, school buildings have two important functional asset values: (a) Educational Functional Value and (b) Emergency Functional Value. The educational function focuses on “continuous learning” and consists of continuous conduct of classes, preservation of school records and documents for future use, and availability of basic resources and access to basic facilities. Emergency function focuses on “protecting lives” and consists of post-disaster uses of the school such as an evacuation center, storage of relief goods and an operation center. This study aims to develop a method of assigning an index corresponding to a school building’s post-disaster functional asset value using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and an expert’s survey. Moreover, using the two-level vulnerability screening as a prioritization scheme, decision makers can prioritize the buildings that have high seismic risk and high functional asset value. This methodology was applied on a school campus as a case study.
The concept of school-based disaster risk reduction (DRR) education has increasingly become popular as greater emphasis is placed on the role of schools in reducing risks and building the resilience of the education system. This paper discusses the variations in the implementation of DRR education among primary schools in different areas including urban, rural, mountainous, plain and coastal areas in Da Nang City, Central Vietnam. For rural schools, similarities in the implementation of DRR education are observed and schools in both rural plain and rural mountainous areas stress the provision of disaster-related training. In addition, improvement of school buildings and external relationship is important for the resilience of urban schools. Specifically, for schools in urban coastal areas, school location and structure are significant, while for schools in the urban plain lands, enhancement of collaboration with their community has the most potential to contribute to the resilience of a school. From that, this research proposes that leadership and prioritization are key factors in helping schools to manage internal and external resources to efficiently overcome challenges and effectively promote DRR education towards the enhancement of schools’ resilience.
Since the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction began in the 1990s, education has been recognized as having a cross-cutting role in disaster reduction by extending the people’s engagement to the creation and maintenance of sustainable communities internationally. During the same period, Japan has experienced large earthquakes, following which Japan has promoted comprehensive school safety and practical disaster education. Although conditions may vary between Japan and other countries, the approaches, issues and challenges of disaster education have much in common. The 2015-2030 Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), fully integrates education and includes the overall goal of disaster risk reduction (DRR) in the full disaster management cycle, from prevention, mitigation and preparedness to response, recovery and rehabilitation. Minimizing loss and damage to educational facilities is included as one of global indicators of SFDRR. A comprehensive approach to school safety is emphasized, including the safety of the learning environment, disaster management and DRR education. An awareness of such commonalities, under the SFDRR, international cooperation for promoting education for resilient communities should be promoted in Japan and globally.
In the last two decades, the two devastating disasters occurred in Japan. One is the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, and the other is the East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011. This chapter as the first chapter of the book on disaster education and disaster risk reduction in education sectors and its governance and management system focuses on the lessons of these disasters, explains disaster resilience of education system referring to the past researches, and considers education perspectives in Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005–2015 and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015–2030. Through experiencing the past disasters, education governance and education contents and approaches have been emphasized in Japan. Educational resilience includes student resilience, teacher resilience, and school resilience, which are transition pathways from individual resilience to system resilience. Through the review of HFA and SFDRR, it was identified that HFA directly focused on education in its Priority 3, and education was considered in all four priorities in SFDRR. It can be concluded that education is a significant crosscutting issue for the priorities of SFDRR which can contribute to achievement of the priorities.
In post-disaster recovery, civil society organizations (CSOs) have a critical role to pay in the education sector. The education sector is no just about rebuilding infrastructure—rather it includes restoring the confidence of young minds and through them, the society. The civil society being open in approach is able to use formal, non-formal and even informal means to reach out, especially those who are vulnerable and may have been impacted the most by disaster. Further, using participatory processes, the transition from recovery to resilience is made possible. CSOs may have a limited direct intervention in restoring formal education systems, that which public agencies are better equipped to handle, nevertheless CSOs do support through partnerships in building capacity contributing significantly to strengthening resilience of the education sector.
Risk communication is considered as an important step of risk management process. An appropriate risk communication needs holistic learning, facilitation between the information sender and receiver, and trust. The paper proposes a new method of risk communication emphasizing the trust building with the local communities through communicative survey. Applying the method in Nagata elementary school, the paper provides a case example with illustration and analysis on useful communicative survey, and exemplifi es the shelter planning (shelter location and residents’ assignment) process. The participants’ ideas and their opinions are best used to adaptively modify and eventually reach the most appropriate assignment plan. It is argued that the process builds trust in the risk information and enables residents to take decisive actions.
Post-disaster recovery processes should be considered as opportunities for development, by revitalizing the local economy and upgrading livelihoods and living conditions. Social capital, which is defined as a function of trust, social norms, participation, and network, can play an important role in recovery. This paper examines the role of social capital in the post earthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction programs in two cases: Kobe, Japan and Gujarat, India. The Kobe case study shows that the community with social capital and with a tradition of community activities can pro-actively participate in the reconstruction program, and thereby can make a successful and speedy recovery. A model for bonding, bridging and linking social capital was developed from the Kobe experience, and was applied to Gujarat in four different communities. It was observed that the community with social capital records the highest satisfaction rate for the new town planning and has the speediest recovery rate. The role of community leaders has been prominent in utilizing social capital in the recovery process, and facilitating collective decision-making. Thus, although the two case studies differ in socio-economic and cultural contexts, the community's social capital and leadership are found to be the most effective elements in both cases in enhancing collective actions and disaster recovery.
Nine years after the Kobe earthquake in Japan, social issues are still prominent, and the rehabilitation process is still ongoing. The earthquake caused two major changes in Japanese society: an increase in voluntary and non-government activities, and the enhancement of cooperation between local government and the residents' association. People's participation in the decision-making process was a significant achievement. To sustain the efforts generated after the earthquake, the Kobe Action Plan was formulated and tested in different disaster scenarios. The current study suggests that civil societies in urban areas are sustainable if, first, the activities related to daily services are provided by the resident's associations; and second, these are linked to economic incentives. Leadership plays a crucial role in collective decision-making. Creation of the support system is essential for long-term sustainability of civil-society activities. These observations are exemplified in the case study in Nishi Suma, one of the worst-affected areas in the Kobe city.
Gender dimensions in risk communication can be examined with reference to sediment-related disaster in Hiroshima, Japan. People were informed about government activities and the possibilities for residents' action after the Nagasaki disaster in 1982. The government made a hazard map to increase understanding of disaster information since the Hiroshima disaster in 1999 and Tokai heavy rainfall disaster in 2000. Risk information for sediment hazards is of four kinds. The first is for the pre-emergency period; the second is in the event of prolonged heavy rainfall, the third concerns the emergency period itself, and the fourth offers recovery information. Thirty-two people died in the 1999 disaster in Hiroshima city, which included sixteen males and sixteen females. Risk communication to women is an absolute requirement for preparedness as evident from the case study of Hiroshima. Community meetings are generally dominated by males and often the discussion does not percolate to female members.
Definition of community varies based on its perspective. Many people describe community in different ways. McMillan & Chavis (1986) described community as “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together.” This definition is preferred in the current context because of its general nature. Community includes not only the people living in a certain location, but also the local government, local business sectors, local academic bodies, and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) (Shaw, 2006a).
The importance of community-based organizations to support relief works in the aftermath of disasters is widely recognized as indispensable in providing quickly the needed help for affected populations (Bajek, Matsuda, & Okada, 2008; Nagasaka, 2008; Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche, & Pfefferbaum, 2008; Shaw & Goda, 2004; Suzuki, 2006). Although communities’ involvement in rescue operations is essential, their role in rehabilitation and future disaster preparedness activities is equally important in the process of forming a disaster-resilient society (Nagasaka, 2008). Furthermore, the level of interaction between local authorities and communities within different phases (preparedness, relief, and rehabilitation) of the disaster management cycle requires attention to effectively implement community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR).
Community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) has been recognized since the mid-1990s. However, in the changing environment of the new millennium and the move toward disaster risk reduction (DRR), the community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) has been evolving in recent years. In Vietnam, many projects and programs in CBDRR have been carried out since the year 2000, and these programs tried to increase the resilience of the most vulnerable villages and communes. These projects aim to strengthen the capacity of the communities to become more aware and responsive to their short-and long-term needs through participatory risk assessment and identification, prioritization, and implementation of risk reduction measures.
The importance of education in disaster risk reduction has been emphasized in several international agendas, frameworks, conferences, as well as UN programs. Chapter 36 of Agenda 21, on “Promoting Education, Public Awareness and Training” stated, “Education, including formal education, public awareness and training, should be recognized as a process by which human beings and societies can reach their fullest potential” (UNEP, 1992). Furthermore, the UN/ISDR System Thematic Cluster/Platform on Knowledge and Education argued that “Education for disaster risk reduction is an interactive process of mutual learning among people and institutions. It encompasses far more than formal education at schools and universities, and involves the recognition and use of traditional wisdom and local knowledge for protection from natural hazard” (UN/ISDR, 2005). In the 2006 Review of the Role of Education and Knowledge in Disaster Risk Reduction, Professor Ben Wisner commented, “Education, knowledge and awareness are critical to building the ability to reduce losses from natural hazards, as well as the capacity to respond to and recover effectively from extreme natural events when they do, inevitably, occur” (Wisner, 2006). The Second Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (2007, India) urged governments to make school safety and the integration of disaster risk reduction into school curricula a priority on the national agenda (UN/ISDR, 2007a). The Third Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (2008, Malaysia) recognized education as an essential contribution to effective implementation of disaster risk reduction and concrete impact in terms of shifts in behaviors at the local level, where communities are most vulnerable to disasters (UN/ISDR, 2008). Last but not least, the UNESCO Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) program emphasized that “Education is the primary agent of transformation toward sustainable development, increasing people's capacities to transform their visions for society into reality” (UNESCO, 2005a).
Many small- and medium-sized Japanese cities are located along the coast and have become vulnerable to both coastal and mountain hazards. The vulnerability is increased by a rapidly growing aging population, low resources, and lack of capacity in the local governments. In this scenario, it is important that the community's potential should be fully utilized through proper awareness raising and capacity building. Town watching is considered as a useful tool to reduce urban risk in small- and medium-sized cities, where local students, teachers, parents, resident associations, and local government members collectively watch both good and bad (vulnerable) parts of their city. This collective watching and participatory mapping enhance the engagement of school children and communities in risk reduction activities. Town watching is considered as a process and it is important to continue the initiative for effective risk reduction at the community level.
Education for disaster risk reduction & school protection
- B Wisner
UNISDR (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction)
- Gar