Japan offers lessons to Philippines on disaster management in schools
To learn lessons from our Asian neighbor’s experience with natural disasters and how their schools have integrated disaster management in the school curriculum, delegates from the Department of Education (DepEd) Region 7, led by Director for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Service (DRRMS) Ronilda Co, visited Kobe and Sendai in Japan recently.
“Japan takes seriously the lessons learned from disasters that hit their country. The study visit to Japan’s disaster-stricken areas allowed us to observe and learn from various disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures of Japan and how we can apply them in our schools,” said Co.
After the earthquake in Kobe in 1995, its Board of Education (BOE) published a manual and held a teachers’ training program on disaster management. Sendai, on the other hand, was severely affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011 and has successfully conducted DRR education in its schools.
DepEd and local DRRM officials from Cebu participated in the study tour organized by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Japanese non-profit group SEEDS Asia, and Hyogo Prefectural Board of Education. Said study tour was part of JICA’s capacity building project on DRR education which piloted in Cebu City in the Philippines. Cebu was selected based on its recent experiences with natural disasters in 2013 including the Bohol earthquake and Typhoon Yolanda.
The group visited the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Memorial and public schools in Kobe, the Tokyo Rinkai Disaster Prevention Park, and the rehabilitation activities in Tamba City which was severely affected by massive rains in 2014.
“We saw how infrastructure building is important in disaster recovery in Japan such as the massive engineering used in Tamba City, but we also saw their commitment to DRR by remembering and passing on memories and lessons on disasters to reduce loss of lives and property,” added Co.
The study tour also came in time for the DepEd’s launching recently of a nationwide jingle making and mascot design contest for public and private high school students to mark this year’s National Disaster Consciousness Month and raise disaster awareness in schools.
Aside from the study tour, JICA also supported disaster awareness-raising activities in Philippine schools through the publishing of a handbook compiling stories of survival of Filipino children in disaster-stricken areas in the Philippines.
Data from DepEd Basic Education Information System for school years covering 2009-2014 showed that out of a total of 46,739 public schools, 39,662 have experienced natural and human-induced hazards. Most of the natural hazards were tropical cyclones, floods, and earthquakes.
In the Philippines, disaster education is steadily taking root as Metro Manila begins conducting metro-wide earthquake drills in both public and private schools.
The DRR study tour was the second time JICA dispatched Filipino education officials and teachers for DRR education. Last year, the first batch of participants visited Japan’s Kobe and Kessunuma cities where teachers observed disaster preparedness drills and recovery efforts.
Both Japan and the Philippines lie on the Pacific Ring of Fire making them both prone to natural disasters. In the Philippines, JICA has actively supported DRR since the 1960s through capacity building support to Philippine frontline agencies for disasters and by providing equipment as well as other socio-economic infrastructure.