Comprehensive School Safety in 2025 Nepal

The original concept for a global program was derived from a small group of international educationalists and risk managers who initiated the Coalition for Global School Safety and Disaster Prevention Education (COGSS-DPE) at the inception of the UNISDR Hyogo Framework for Action in 2005. This initiative was fully embraced by the UN during the following two years, emerging as a multi-agency, international collaboration: the GADRRRES (Global Alliance for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience in the Education Sector). The alliance hosts a significant online library of data and guidance notes for any nation to access in order to generate its own comprehensive national school safety policy agenda with support materials.

Why is school safety so important? During the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, we lost over 18000 children while sitting at the desks at 9.30 am, and 10500 children in the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 during school hours.  The Gorkha earthquake in 2015 damaged or destroyed over 8,200 schools and more than 30,000 classrooms across Nepal, which occurred outside of school hours. However, some estimates suggest that in the most affected districts, over 90% of schools were destroyed, adversely affecting the education of over 1million children for an extended period. This is unacceptable.

Consequently, in Nepal, and across the world, a key strategy of awareness, preparedness, training, and response is being undertaken within the education sector to better prepare and train schools and their communities, providing DRR materials and interventions to build resilience to natural events such as Earthquakes and Floods, to ensure safe continuity of education. This requires a wide collaboration between Federal and Local Government, the Education authorities such as CEHRD, Representative bodies such as PAN, PABSON, NPABSON, and School Alliances, plus Implementation Education and Safety Agencies. Essential if we are to address all schools across Nepal simultaneously within the 5-year objectives.

The physical location of Schools is equally important, as are the materials they are constructed from, including their maintenance, repair, and practical design. However, School safety doesn’t solely emerge from disaster management; we also embrace every facet of health and safety, which includes WASH, Road Safety, Crowd Dynamics, Health and Well-being, Child Protection, and Inclusivity, ensuring “no one is left behind”.

Nepal, despite its amazing and varied topography of natural beauty, remains a developing nation facing numerous existing and emerging risks. The UN’s promotion of “Education, Education, Education” has, in turn, put enormous pressure on communities to provide and sustain it. Teachers are in short supply, and qualified, trained teachers are rare. With over 27,000 community secondary-level schools and a further 8,000 private schools, the demand for budget, resources, and capacity stretches beyond Nepal’s present coping mechanisms and parents’ expectations. We need to amalgamate many smaller schools and generate a ‘Cluster System’, where each can benefit from another’s strengths through a ‘Beacon School’ initiative. School Safety is one such crucial strength. Consequently, following advice, the government education departments are reviewing and developing a manageable, equitable, accessible, and sustainable education system.

In 2025, as we lead up to the 2030 goal posts of the UN’s 2015 Sendai Framework for Action and SDGs, we need to oversee a far greater holistic approach to school safety. Organizations, such a PAN and its implementation partner WEaRE, are strategizing to embrace not only potential disastrous events, but also the Psychology and Emotional safety, Cyber and Digital emerging risks to children with mobile addition and online abuse and exploitation; evolving risks of poorly regulated transport systems; road safety hardening in each schools vicinity; hygiene and nutrition; and importantly managing inclusivity and social issues which either excludes children from schooling, restrains their development,  or tempts them to abandon full term education.

Child Safety within the community is an ongoing risk across Nepal, especially along the borders, with child labour exploitation, trafficking, and neglect, all add to the risks of children’s failure to full full-term education. Whilst multiple NGOs and INGOs are active in the field, every school must develop a good relationship with the local Police. Simultaneously, the Police play an enormous role in the social safety of the child, this is especially important during times of Crisis and disaster aftermath, with communities in confusion and individuals potentially isolated from surviving family or indeed orphaned. Community Police being familiar with locals and hopefully prepared to repel illicit transients and traffickers.

Is all of this achievable? With a proper strategy, collaboration between federal and local government, supported by National Strategic Agencies and Representative education bodies, with school management, including awareness amongst Parent Teachers’ associations, yes, it’s achievable. But it requires an implementation strategy that is deliverable and sustainable and rises above budget misuse and solitary whims. It requires continuity of message across all Nepal, from Mountainous regions to the Terai, from remote rural communities to the fast-developing urban sprawls. In many guises, education has become a business, money making exercise, from which anything outside of the pedagogy becomes sacrificed, namely safety. Simplistic examples include; zero schools have fire early warning smoke alarms; 1% have Fire Extinguishers, even less have sufficient appliances for for their footprint, 1^st Aid facilities are mostly grossly inadequate for the school capacity, training and emergency drills have faded since 2015 to almost zero practiced amongst the 33,000 schools. These are the basics.

Also required is training of the School management of their responsibilities, material provision, guidance, and specific training. Example: for Fire warden and 1^st Aider existing staff in each school, along with a pioneering role of DRHS officer [Disaster Reduction Health and Safety], developed by WEaRE and NOSHA, which bridges the two spectrums of larger physical risks, such as Fire, Flood, Earthquake, Landslide, structural instability, and that of the daily risks of general Health and Wellbeing, Trips, Falls, Contagions, Disease, and Road Safety. Health posts play a vital role in bridging between school and family, identifying trends and risk gaps requiring attention.

None of this can be achieved without the parents’ awareness and support. Schools function both ways, imparting information to the children, but equally generating a community outreach process of knowledge sharing back into the families from schools, especially for all safety issues. What applies in DRHS at school equally applies within the home, office, retail shop, workshop, and field. With the correct devised materials devised for Teachers and students, using our Games Partners ‘Let’s Play’ and Theatre Partners ‘Education Theatre in Nepal’, we can share and introduce the same awareness and preparedness policy, strategy, and mitigation and response via the children across all of Nepal society. As per formal H&S in developed nations, Safety is Everyone’s Responsibility, including the children themselves.

“The sooner that you can generate the young person’s thought processes as to the challenges, the sooner they will develop and assist in the ownership of the solutions, thus providing the much sought-after Sustainability and Resilience.”

“जति चाँडो तपाईंले चुनौतीहरूको बारेमा युवाका विचार प्रक्रियाहरू उत्पन्न गर्न सक्नुहुन्छ, त्यति नै चाँडो तिनीहरूले समाधानहरूको स्वामित्वमा विकास र सहयोग गर्नेछन्, जसले गर्दा धेरै खोजिने दिगोपन र लचिलोपन प्रदान हुनेछ।”

Through the ‘Principals Association of Nepal’ (PAN) network across Nepal, we have devised a series of implementation strategies to address the core subject matter of comprehensive school safety, along with a strategy to reach all schools by 2030. Every child is equally important regardless of wealth or remoteness. Working with Government Ministries and CEHRD, an independent online Baseline Survey has been piloted during this year within one District set of schools for each Province. In 2026 this will be rolled out to all community schools in a new interactive Platform presently under development between WEaRE and ‘NEEMA Academy Foundation’.  This is followed by a CSS Starter Pack being developed and shared, leading school management through all aspects of self-assessment and required components that they can initially implement themselves, with centralized guidance, counselling and briefings. There are thirteen modules of various priorities to self-comply, with a Primary ‘Red Flagging’ Module that identifies immediate requirements. A T4 implementation strategy is under development to establish national trainers, training provincial trainers who oversee district trainers, who in turn train within School Clusters or Municipality school clusters. This enables simultaneous access to all schools, leaving no one behind, and waiting decades for attention.

A Care Plus Inclusivity strategy has been developed to address child retention in school at maximum learning capacity; this includes identifying Physical disabilities, Mental and Neurological Challenges, and Social issues, including bullying, all of which can have an adverse distraction or incapacitate the individual’s opportunity to maximise full-term education. This is managed through a devised referral system, working closely with upskilled nurses, local visiting health officials, and specialist provision agencies.

So let’s summarise with some specifics.

A School Safety Management Team to be established for policy and implementation, adopting Crisis Management Policy, General DRHS Policy, Child Protection Policy, Cyber and Digital Access Policy, WASH policy, Hazard Event Response Training and Drills Policy, and Scheduling.

The physical safe infrastructure of a school is paramount. The PAN WEaRE Baseline Survey’s ‘red flags’ deficiencies enable closer inspection by engineers, budgeting, and agency prioritized response. Simple internal tasks of Signage for escape routes, assembly points, fire and earthquake drills, have minimal cost but a significant impact of safety culture awareness. Basic USAR tools for 1^st response to entrapped victims, and Grab bags with prescribed essentials for evacuation and 6 to 24-hour isolation before responding emergency services gain access, all of which ignites a Safety Culture within Schools and their Communities.

Smoke alarms at key locations are the fire’s early warning system and potentially help prevent fire from spreading and trapping individuals. Fire extinguishers strategically located also require staff training for their use, to enable small fires to be extinguished or facilitate safe evacuation.

Safe Playground facilities and equipment require safety assessment and maintenance. Schools ought to be confined within strict secure boundaries, either monitored by the school security officer or CCTV, with a strict entry system to monitor valid visitors and the elusive student.

1^st Aid facilities ideally require a designated ground floor ambulance accessible room for private consultation, treatment, or convalescence, with adequate secure 1^st Aid materials and dispensary for the capacity of the school. If not a permanent School Nurse, then a 1^St AIDER trained staff member is essential for medical first response coordination, and dispensary of hygiene and medicines.  This same Nurse or appointed 1st Aider requires additional training for the ‘Care Plus’ components, including Psychological and Emotional 1^st and 2^nd level referral processing.

Road Safety is becoming a core issue for Schools within fast-developing infrastructure, including Transportation regulation, licensing, and driver training. A school safety responsibility does not stop at the school gate. It’s provided or authorized transportation vehicles must be compliant, safe, and with competent and qualified PSV drivers, meeting specific age, medical, and training standards.

The Physical road safety surrounding or approaching a school is equally important. Nepal Rotary is championing Road safety and has partnered with WEaRE to prioritise a “School Road Safety Strategy”,  hardening special road feature components implementation to maximise student pedestrian safety and enable road user safety and compliance near schools.  Features include: no parking zones in the immediate vicinity of school gates; barrier fencing from pedestrian exits along road sides preventing run out into roads; pedestrian crossings on all approaching roads; introduction of Belisha beacons identifying crossing locations for pedestrians and approaching Road users; Lighting of access paths and gates; and ‘School Zone’ signage on all approach road locations.

Conclusion:

By working together within a holistic, integrated collaborative approach to Comprehensive School Safety, we will make all schools a “Fear Free Zone” which is both Resilient and Sustainable. Budget requirements can be minimized and shared from Federal, to Provincial, District, and Municipality, to the Schools themselves, in addition to donors and charitable agencies. Most importantly, to have clear objectives, a comprehensive set of policies and strategy, implementation methodology, achievable deliverables, supported by comprehensible child child-friendly, and community outreach materials.

“Let’s make schools fear-free Zones” for “Safer Future Generations”