Essential principles
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SECTION I: INTRODUCTION
Key principles of community-based safer
school construction
Build safe schools and strengthen weak ones. Schools must be designed and constructed to protect students
and staff. When existing schools facilities are unsafe, they need to be identified, prioritised and strengthened.
Concern for community priorities, cost and time takes second place to safety, and all stakeholders must commit to
ensuring safety through quality assurance. Building anything that does not meet these assurances risks lives and
wastes development funds and community effort.
Engage as partners. A community-based approach is premised on building consensus between the development
actor/government body and the local community. Development actors and governments may be best positioned
to provide knowledge of regional hazards, hazard-resistant designs and effective construction techniques. But
communities will be more knowledgeable of local hazards, site conditions and material availability. They will also
best understand local construction practices. Both parties need to learn from each other.
Project implementers must avoid token participation. Rather, school communities should be empowered to be full
partners in comprehensive school safety.
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Ensure technical oversight. While appropriate safe school construction enhances community capacity and
transfers technology, technical oversight remains crucial. The development actor or government must ensure
design and construction complies with good practice for hazard-resistant construction. Where technical capacity
is low, they should also increase local technical capacity by connecting skilled labour and technical specialists
from the community with external specialists.
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Build upon local knowledge. Safe school construction should build on local knowledge, not replace it. Site
selection, design and construction should follow local practice, making only moderate adaptations to ensure
safety. Doing so ensures communities can adapt good practices to existing ones and apply them elsewhere.
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Develop capacity and bolster livelihoods. Community-based safe school construction provides an important
training ground for new skills. Projects should support training for skilled craftsmen and women who need to
learn hazard-resistant construction techniques. Once trained, these craftspeople may even market their new
skills. Safe school projects may also be ideal for improving the skills of local government technical staff in hazardresistant design and construction oversight. Their involvement in all projects – big and small – can spark interest
in community-based approaches and further encourage governments to fulfil their obligation of providing safe
schools to all communities.
Good practice
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Support a culture of safety. Building safe schools provides a tangible project for increasing community
awareness about hazards and risk-reduction strategies, and this awareness can be sustained and enhanced.
Establishing school disaster management committees and integrating hazards and risk-reduction concepts into
curricula can encourage everyone to regularly engage in school disaster risk reduction after construction
is complete.
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Scale-up and promote accountability. Organisations and agencies engaging in community-based safer school
construction should develop common standards, processes and guidance tools. This will allow successful aspects
of the approach to spread. They can also make a public commitment to safer schools and track this commitment
through measurable targets and indicators.
Photo: Veejay Villafranca/Save The Children
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