A service level agreement to implement the ‘School Safety Policy’ was signed between the Nagaland State Disaster Management Authority (NSDMA), Department of School Education (DoSE) and NagaEd today, June 9.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has prepared a comprehensive school safety policy 2016 with a vision to strengthen risk resilience of schools in the country. The policy was framed under the guidance of Ministry of Home Affairs and Human Resource Development, Government of India.
Giving a brief background of the policy, Joint Chief Executive Officer, NSDMA, Johnny Ruangmei said every state in the country is supposed to implement this policy.
Accordingly, NSDMA had developed the same few years back, which was approved by the Cabinet and subsequently published in the Gazette too.
However, this couldn’t take off owing to the challenges of imparting physical training and reaching out to every teacher on ground, said Ruangmei.
Subsequently, NagaEd has been roped in as a partner to design and develop the digital compliance module, to provide technical support and roll out the digital module, and also to provide training on how to use the platform (training of trainers).
He informed that NagEd will develop the module in five months time (November), and the portal will be launched on December 1, coinciding with the statehood day. Following which, he said, the training will be rolled out in the subsequent weeks.
In the first phase, Ruangmei said the target will be 5000 teachers (both government and private) from across the state. The selection of teachers for the training will be carried out by the Department of School Education.
Giving an overview of the NDMSSP, Khrolou Koza Lohe, Assistant Manager (Training & Education) NSDMA, said NDMSSP has been developed in collaboration with DoSE to proactively ensure safety of all students and staff in schools across the state.
The initial challenge of ensuring all schools in the state to comply with this policy has been resolved – to digitise the policy and make it accessible even to schools located in remote areas.
The primary goals, Lohe explained is to trained teachers on the subject of disaster management through on-line mode, formulate their own individual school safety plan and to provide a safe work place for both faculty and students in response to disaster through disaster preparedness measures.
While NagaEd will develop the digital compliance module, DoSE will provide list of teachers for training and enforce participation for certificate course, the NSDMA will finance the course and act as the facilitator and interlocutor, informed Lohe.
Commissioner & Secretary, Kevileno Angami said this policy is crucial today, in making the students and teachers prepared for disaster risk. As students and teachers spend most of their time in schools, this policy will helped them better prepared.
Angami informed that there are 30,000 teachers (both government and private) and four lakh students from across the state. Principal Director School Education, Thavaseelan K also informed that there are 1939 government schools with roughly 1.64 lakh students.
This training programme, he said will create a much safer learning space in schools for both the teachers and the students. For the training programme, he said larger schools will have more teachers, and teachers from across the state will be trained for this programme.
The service level agreement was signed by Lhoucalie Viya, Commissioner & Secretary, NSDMA; Kevileno Angami, Commissioner & Secretary, School Education and NagaEd Operation Manager, Marina Dzüvichü as the signatories.
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