Assessment of disaster risk reduction knowledge of school teachers in Nepal

Background: Nepal is a Himalayan mountainous country and it is extremely vulnerable to various natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, landslides, windstorms, droughts and other ecological hazards. Every year, the disaster statistics of Nepal are awful which always motivate and justify the urgent need of disaster risk reduction (DRR) works in Nepal. The World Disaster Reduction Campaign for 2006-2007 (Disaster Risk Reduction begins at school) has started various initiatives worldwide to make school safer from disaster and Nepal has also started to include disaster education in school as its program of mainstreaming the disaster risk reduction in education sector. In this context, few education programs for disaster risk reduction were already initiated in Nepal and few positive results were already documented. However, evaluation of the real ground scenario from independent research is still lacking. Aim: This research aims to explore existing knowledge of school teachers in Nepal about disaster risk reduction. Materials and Methods: Altogether 106 teachers from 19 districts of Nepal were interviewed and various questions related to disaster information, disaster knowledge, readiness, awareness, adaptation, and risk perception were asked to the teachers. The school principal, or the vice-principal or the assistant principal is selected for the interview. Their respond on DRR issues certainly help to accumulate realistic scenarios of DRR among education leaders of Nepal. They were 13% of female and 87% of male participants. Statistical Analysis: Statistical analysis, such as histogram analysis, distribution analysis, bivariate correlations and independent sample t-tests were conducted to examine the relationship between teachers and their knowledge on key DRR issues related dependent variables. Result and Conclusion: Finding of this independent research confirmed that initiatives taken for DRR in education sectors of Nepal is not enough and still teachers are not fully aware of DRR issues. The research also found that teachers are not well informed of elements in disaster risk and related knowledge of DRR. In Nepal, the DRR education must be promoted to communities through the well-groomed school teachers to reduce disaster risk in community and to establish disaster safe society.