Site assessment and selection
In community-based school construction, local communities
are often directly involved in providing a school site. In
fact, often the school management committee needs to
identify a site, through direct purchase or donation, before
implementing agencies provide support. At other times,
government agencies transfer allocated public land to a
committee for the use of a school. In either case, site options
may be remote or dangerous because the land is in low
demand. Stakeholders, communities and committees can
avoid the selection of poor sites by contractually agreeing to
limit exposure to hazards based on a hazard assessment.
When school construction involves adding classrooms
to existing schools or rebuilding on an established site,
school management committees may not think to evaluate
site safety. However, especially in case of rebuilding on
an established site, input from hazard specialists helps
to identify which hazards are likely to occur over the next
several decades. Technical specialists should then evaluate
this information to determine if hazard-resistant design and
construction sufficiently reduces the risk to students and
staff, or if rebuilding at the site is unsafe.
Flagging problems early
Beyond safety, site selection can impose constraints on
school design or increase construction cost. A site with poor
soil or a steep slope needs more expensive foundations or
extensive levelling. A site with narrow or low-capacity access
routes hinders the movement of construction materials. The
shape of the site dictates the dimensions and layout of the
school. When construction specialists are part of the school
management committee or serve as local resource persons,
they can help flag potential problems before construction
begins.
IN CONTEXT
Some gifts are not free
Land tenure is important to consider in communitybased school cons truction. School buildings
cannot provide a safe and functional educational
space if the land they are built on is later claimed
for other purposes.
In El Salvador, many school sites are seemingly
donated by wealthy patrons when in reality they
have been given as a loan. Upon the death of a
patron, heirs may reclaim the land or demand rent
at a moment’s notice, putting children out of school
and burdening the state with unexpected costs.
Direct purchase and government appropriation
provide the most straightforward path to secure
land tenure. In other cases, long-term lease or
use agreements may provide some security when
school sites are donated. Formal agreements
reduce the chance that the owner will reclaim the
site after school infrastructure investments have
been made.
In informal settlements or slums, where securing
formal rights to a site is impossible, school
management committees can seek written
commitments. Nearby households and local and
regional governments can agree to refrain from
building or encroaching on the proposed school
site over a set number of years.
SECTION III: PLANNING
Site safety is the main constraint on adequate school
placement. Selecting a safe school site is a technical
decision where hazard exposure, accessibility and
availability are optimised. Program managers should
facilitate a dialogue between school management
committees, the wider community, donors and implementing
agencies and government actors. They should especially
create dialogue with technical specialists to facilitate the best
option for site safety.
When a safer schools program focuses on retrofitting
existing school buildings, site selection takes on different
complexities. While school sites are pre-defined, selecting
the best buildings for a safer school program requires the
assessment of a large number of buildings to identify the
most critically weak structures. The case study at the end of
this section considers one such process (see the Community
Planning Stage case study).
Community members walk a transect to identify local hazards
together. These hazards will be placed on a map in order to select
safer sites for reconstruction. Photo: Seki Hirano/CRS.
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